Them and Me

Watching, the sight of them walking from the car this morning brought me a glimpse of the future. I see them but sometimes I get a glimpse of what will be. This won’t the first or the last time they will be walking away from me. With each step they take, they grow. The hardest part for me is that I know they are walking towards their own lives, their lives without me driving them to soccer, baseball, school, tucking them into bed, hugging them and the luxury of looking into their faces every day.


They seem so little, so fragile, but today, today I saw them age about 5 years. I saw the trio of teens leaving me to engage in their own world of giggles, smiles, learning, having relationships that I am not a part of. I immediately missed them.

The logical, inevitable truth is they will age, they will change but there is part of me that doesn’t want to let go. I want to keep them nuzzled in my arms, enveloped in their smell, mesmerized by their smiles, gob smacked by their presence. This is the unsaid truth about being a parent. The one truth I am still not prepared to deal with properly.

To love someone so much is addictive, I for one do not want treatment. I am addicted. The rain outside coincides with the beating of my heart and the tap, tap, tap of the drops marks the progression of time. My time with them is unknown, but every second, minute, hour or day is locked away in my heart.

Cherish them, love them, just be for them.

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
― Pablo Neruda