School Days are Back Again, and so are the memories

Back to school pictures are filling up my news-feed on Facebook these days.  Seeing the parents I’ve known for years posting pictures of their children growing bigger and changing accentuates the reality of the days and years flying by.  Our own children now are grown and gone.  Those pictures didn’t have a place like Facebook like they do now.  ‘Let me down easy, let me down slow’ are the words of a song I listen to some days.  Our children have grown up so quickly as if to ensure their survival in the wild like cubs or baby sea turtles.  The bigger they get the better their survival rate is, we can only pray.

When our son was younger, kids bullied at the bus stop.  One summer he shot up several inches and blazed through 5 shoe sizes literally.  That next year, the bullying stopped and his life at school got so much calmer.  Thank the Lord for growth spurts! 

The nights we hovered over our babies with white knuckles wondering if they were OK swiftly moved into the toddler years when bumping their heads or what they just put in their mouths caused such excitement.  Kindergarten and the early grades seemed to pass by like a waterfall of pictures falling in break-neck speed.  Looking back at their little smiles morphed into metal-banded grimaces of complete disdain toward homework or practice time.

The college years could not have gone faster for us.  Attending the orientation each year with a different student was like a dream that wouldn’t stop.  Text pictures of time-stamped hallways at 4 am in the library with study-buddies and the capturing of a long lost sibling eating lunch by themselves until being caught up in a picture sent to mom and dad with the caption, “Look who I found!”  Laughter at the time dad bought Valentines gifts and delivered them to their dorms with chocolates.  Oh the smiles!!

What do we do with all these memories of footsteps down the stairs, violin and piano music playing, or someone playing with a cat in the next room.  The midnight requisition of a sibling’s attire would find a stampede of feet clamoring down the stairs for the judge and jury to convict and the laughter of holiday meals and days together on vacations.  When all the while we loved being parents, witnessing the growth and progress of the human person in our care.  As that phase of our lives ends, theirs are just beginning.  More memories, for sure and more laughter, we hope.

Again, I say:  “Let me down easy, let me down slow.”