Flying Solo

And so it begins…. it feels like yesterday that my darling granddaughter let go of the coffee table and tottered toward her father’s open arms. Both faces were beaming, there was thunderous applause. Just last week the training wheels came off her bicycle and again the audience roared. She is five years old and she is on the move.

It’s easy to recall these milestones with my own children – they happened a yesterday ago too. But that yesterday was years ago. It’s these memories that make me watch the events of today a little closer, and they make my heart ache a little while I cheer. I had a sense of how fast the days were going to turn into years back  when I was living the moment, but the years moved faster than I could have imagined.

I’ve always been nostalgic – there has always been a little voice in my head that whispered “wait…. look closer…you will want to remember.” I think this is the birthplace of awe. This is the lump in my throat, the tears in my eyes. This is the realization that time is flying and that the moments count.

When my son texted the video of his daughter’s maiden flight the image I received was the memory of his first solo ride. This is perhaps part of the magic of grandchildren, they seem to stir in us the sense that youth can, in fact, be re-visited. They give us the opportunity to relive special moments. We can be awestruck again, this time for two people – the grandchild and their parent.

My granddaughters have enriched my life in ways it was impossible to imagine. There aren’t words for the feeling they evoke. It is love, magnified by the passage of time. Love, rooted in the past and dipped in the future. They inspire an appreciation of the moment.

I am thankful for my memories and thankful for these opportunities to revisit them. The faces of the children might be different, but the sense of accomplishment on them is the same. We are all on the move – the future awaits – the adventures have just begun. Once those training wheels are off the bike, the sky is the limit (or the end of the cul de sac, if you’re five.)