Time does not stop for us

No matter how much we may wish it.

Halfway through the school term, our youngest son, Lenny, wakes up with a high temperature of 39.5 degrees.

‘You’re staying home today,’ my husband tells him.

‘But you’re going to have stay in bed and rest all day,’ I add.

He looks at us with his rosy cheeks and nods. ‘Okay,’ he says quietly.

I cancel my Thursday appointments and work from home instead.

In the studio, I set my favourite playlist on repeat to keep myself in the right headspace—or to ‘lock in’ as the boys would say. Every hour or so, I pop upstairs to check on Lenny. A few times, he is asleep. Other times, I find him reading. Whenever he spies me at the door, he blows me kisses from his bed. I catch them and blow kisses back at him. He catches these with his hands and places them carefully on his cheeks. He is genuinely the sweetest little person.

Later in the afternoon, after the rest of the family is home, and he and I are chatting on the couch, he shares some of his observations from his day of resting:

‘Time goes quickly at school, but it goes so slowly when you’re lying in bed at home.’

‘I heard you singing at least twice today, mum.’

‘I like lying there and listening to natural life.’

____

The next day, my alarm wakes me up at quarter past seven. The three middle boys are already at school, as they all have band rehearsals on Friday mornings.

I make my bed, pop my contact lens in, and pull on my old ripped jeans and my favourite IKEA t-shirt. As I grab my black cap, I can hear Rick, my husband, calling out to Andy downstairs: ‘Fourteen minutes till the bus, Andy!’

I pick up my pace and trundle down the stairs with as much speed as I can muster. Lenny is happily eating his Weet-Bix at the dining table. He has clearly recovered overnight. ‘Hey mum!’ he calls out in his cheery voice.

‘Good morning, my darling boy,’ I say as I walk over and kiss him on the top of his head. I breathe him in and smile. ‘Is Andy already in the garage?’

‘Yup!’

I glance out the window and see Rick at the washing line. Such a legend.

I hurry into the garage and start pulling on my New Balance sneakers. They are almost fives years old and make squeaking noises every time I walk in them.

Andy already has his shoes on and is putting on his sunscreen.

‘Ready to go?’ I ask. He nods.

‘See you, Lenny!’ I call out to my youngest.

‘See you, mum!’ he calls back.

____

As we walk up to the bus stop, I ask Andy about the piece of timber he’s bringing to school.

‘We’re studying the coefficients of friction for different types of surfaces.’

‘That’s cool,’ I say. ‘Gosh, I remember studying all of that in physics. Weird how I learnt all of that…um… twenty-six years ago, and now I can’t remember any of it.’

‘Was that when you were in Year 11?’

‘Yeah, back in…1996.’ Even as I say the words out loud, it feels almost unbelievable that so much time has passed since I was at school myself.

‘Time flies,’ I say.

‘Yeah, I still remember Year 7 so clearly.’

‘Me too. And I was just thinking the other day about your first day of high school and how I walked you up to the bus stop that morning. Do you remember?’

‘Yeah, I do.’

I remember how you were a little nervous, how you weren’t yet taller than me, how your uniform was still a little too big on you, and how you could still pass as a ‘little’ kid. And now look at you.

‘I remember telling you about how I used to catch the bus to high school,’ I say out loud, as we cross the road. He smiles knowingly.

We pass the large fenced property on the main road. Previously a beautiful and immaculate property, it now looks unkempt and uncared for. As we make our way through the tall weeds that have now sprouted all along the path, we both glance longingly beyond the fence and I can tell we are both wishing the same thing: If only the property hadn’t sold to developers. If only we could turn back time.

As we near the pedestrian crossing, I ask Andy what passage they’re studying at the lunchtime fellowship group today. He reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out a small piece of paper. I take it from him and hold it up close to my eyes. The font is tiny, but I can still make out that the passage is from Chapter 9 of the Gospel of Luke.

I ask him whether they had a leaders’ meeting this week, and he tells me, yes, it was on Tuesday.

‘So you feel prepared?’

‘Sort of,’ he replies.

We spend the rest of the walk chatting about what it means to ‘lose your life’ and to ‘deny yourself and take up your cross’. I’m still explaining how taking up your cross means to serve and love as Jesus did and how love is always costly when his bus pulls up at the stop.

We fist bump each other as he steps away to board the bus.

The memory of him getting onto the bus on his first day flashes across my mind, and I look away before I get too emotional.

I take my phone out to message Rick and look up just as the bus starts to leave. Andy is sitting near the back, and he smiles and waves just as the bus passes by.

I wave back and give him the biggest smile I can manage.

Time flies.

____

The truth is that I’m struggling to keep up with how quickly the boys are growing up.

Seven years ago, when we moved into our new home, Lenny wasn’t even two, Ewan was only just starting school, and the other three were all firmly planted in the middle of primary school. They were all still ‘little’ in my eyes, and in my heart, I still thought of myself as a mum of ‘little boys’.

Now, all of a sudden, four are in high school, Lenny has less than three years of primary school left, and Andy is on track to finish school next year.

In fact, Andy turns eighteen next year. Then it’ll be Pip’s turn. Then Jake the year after.

How are my boys suddenly almost grown-ups? (And how are they all of a sudden so much taller than me?)

Recently, I told a friend that I wished I could travel back in time. To go back and experience the boys being small and tiny again: To hold their little hands. To kiss their chubby cheeks. To breathe in their baby smell. To sing songs with them at bedtime. To pick them up and swing them around. To wrap my arms around their little bodies and squeeze them as tightly as I can.

In many ways, the past feels so solid and real to me. Some days, I feel like I can reach out and almost touch it. My heart longs for this. Yearns for it. Aches for it.

The irony, of course, is that one day, the present will become the past, and no doubt I will want to come back to this time and experience it all over again.

As I once wrote (eleven years ago when Andy was starting school), time does not stop for us. No matter how much we may wish it.

The only antidote to time passing is to immerse ourselves in the present: to embrace it, to experience it, to savour it, and to document it. To be present in every way. And to be thankful for every bit of it.