The Sands Of Time Run Out Fast

We had an assembly at school the other day. Test scores and raising them are both the focus of our lives at pretty much any school nowadays. We had a pirate theme going on and everyone had eye patches and pirate hats and there was more than one "Aaaarr" to be heard. I was talking to a friend about the assembly last fall when we were all gung-ho about the Star Wars theme and I was thinking aloud that I didn't remember being there when that was introduced and I must have missed it and then...I remembered.

That was when dad died.

We went to the pumpkin patch the other day to pick out pumpkins and eat apple pie and take a hay ride with the little blonde boy who is the center of all our lives and I was trying to remember why I didn't go to the pumpkin patch last year and then...I remembered.

I was at the funeral home that day making arrangements.

Hard to believe it's been a year. And yet it's easy to believe as well. Time slips by so quickly, so quietly, so seamlessly knitting up the days that you don't notice it at all. The days and weeks and months slip through our grasp until a year has passed and it seems like just yesterday they handed that folded up flag to my mom while the Marines saluted and it was a cool fall day and we were all crying.

Things change. Life happens. When I handed Wes a little wooden toy train car I got free from Toys R Us the other day, he laughed aloud and said "Thomas!". Clearly. Understandably.

When dad died, Wes wasn't talking at all.

Things change. Life happens. Some of it is sad. But we have to remember. Some of it is good. Very good.