Thursday, August 9, 2007

Sunrise, Sunset

Like most parents, I have many photographs of my children around the house. A few months ago, I woke one morning and my eye landed on a studio portrait of my three children together at ages, 12, 5 and 2 respectively. I love the picture. My oldest was on the cusp of becoming a teenager, with new braces on her teeth, my son is grinning in his own particularly mischevious way. The youngest with her huge brown eyes and bowl shaped haircut, looking very cute. I realized that I have only one other photograph of them together, taken at my niece's wedding in Birmingham, Alabama about five years ago. So on Easter Sunday I told my husband that he had to take their picture together, because it isn't so often anymore that they are all in the same place! He obliged and I was thrilled with the results. I gave my oldest daughter a copy and she put it on her refridgerator with a magnet. One day when I was visiting, she told me that her boss, who grew up in foster homes had come into her kitchen to fill up his water bottle at the sink. Turning around, he spied the photograph on the fridge. He walked over to it and exclaimed, "just look at that picture! Three great looking kids, together, still in touch with each other. Your parents must be so proud"!

I am proud of them. Now each one of them has contributed their share to all the gray in our hair. The oldest has had her share of chronic health problems, our son has been in several serious accidents and got into trouble running with the wrong crowd. The youngest went through a tumultous, rebellious teenager period. The son has just moved back home temporarily. The youngest has completed three years of college and is moving back home to attend nursing school. I've been praying for a calm period.

On MY refridgerator, there is a copy of an old Family Circus cartoon. It is titled: Before You Can Turn Around. It portrays the parents in the center of the picture at various ages looking a little bewildered. On the left are their four young children playing with their toys. On the right side, the phantom figures of the same four kids are young adults leaving home as older Mom waves goodbye and Dad looks perplexed. I laminated it and kept it to remind me that childhood is indeed short although it doesn't seem so as you endure it on a daily basis!

I love the song in the movie, Fiddler On the Roof, in which the lyrics ask"Is this the little girl I carried? Is this the little boy at play? I don't remember growing older. When did they? When did she grow to be a beauty? When did he get to be so tall? Wasn't it yesterday when they were small? Sunrise, sunset swiftly fly the years. One season following another laden with happiness and tears."

It hasn't been easy at all. But I am blessed.