Back some time ago, when my two kids were young and restless, I guess I was also young and restless and a bit resentful of the requisite donation of time, the endless giving of time, my time for others. But I now know those times I gave my time to my children were among the most precious times I have been present for.
Being in the Now of then is still with me, even now. Some of the accuracy of memory has blurred, those times I meant to lose, the times I drank to escape facing time. All the time...
Before my kids were wise enough to have learned not to trust everything I say as truth, they believed in the concept of certainties.
Children need this.
As they say, there are some things that remain certain, like death-which is time, and taxes-which is the burden of money, both are binding.
My son would rely on one clock. The clock on the microwave in the kitchen was like the sun for him, and even then he was a live-life-by-the-(exact)-minute kind of guy, meaning take a shower at 6:48, anything else considered late, he believed he was contributing to the order of things.
One specific night I remember wanting to escape all my obligations in order to drink.
I changed the clock on the microwave, I stole an hour of his life that night so he and my daughter would go to bed and I could be left alone in silence.
He should have learned to never trust the time.
One night, at some time in the future, he will find this out and come to collect an hour of my time, with interest accrued in the past.
I will tell him, these are the good times that never last.
And he will be counting the seconds until he will be left alone in silence, sooner rather than later.
Time flies, they say, but sometimes jumps ahead, like today, when we Spring forward and agree to donate an hour of our time until we Fall back,
into precious memories like these.
Image of painting by Hugó Poll, Sunset (1914), [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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