TMEW and I are no longer spring chickens, I guess. I think we knew this, innately, but really haven’t wanted to face up to it directly (but few of us do, right?). Well, reality has a way of intruding on one’s outlook – and it is persistent. Like many, I was outside on Thanksgiving Day trying to get rid of the snow so that our guests could get into the driveway and up to the house – wet, heavy and in a lot of places, just plain compacted “cement”. And my back decided to let me know of ITS reality and all but quit on me (even with the John Deere snowblower).
Both the Youngest and the Eldest came over quickly and spent the next hour or so doing the rest of the cleanup – the pathway up to the house, finished snowblowing the driveway, raked the roofs, cleared out the mailbox on the street, and removed the veritable ice ridge at the end of the driveway from the plow trucks. And that’s when it hit me…
….just like I used to do for my parents when my two were those ages..
Yes, those ages – for the first time in years, TMEW and I didn’t go up to Hart’s Turkey Farm restaurant up in Meredith but had the entire family over instead. And also for the first time in years (since TMEW had a home daycare), the house was filled with children: a 9 month old, 2 yr old, a 3 year old, a 4 year old, and a 5 year old at the house – one of the reasons why I was offline all day Thursday and yesterday (yes, they decided to make yesterday Thanksgiving Day all over again). People bustling around, yakking, playing – I just kinda sat back and took it all in and reflected. It just crept up on me that Thursday was not just yet another Thanksgiving at chez Murphy; instead, it was the “Day of Generations Passing”.
Yes, I could saw that the lessons taught years ago with nary a word spoken took hold those many years ago and only in hopes they would be caught. Thursday, it became clear that the lessons for the Eldest and Youngest took hold – even when I thought it was hopeless, it turned out that they really were watching. As I told the other Groksters:
You know, its funny. All I could think of was Eldest’s first day of kindergarten, sitting on the railroad tie at the end of the driveway and then getting on the school bus – knowing then we were no longer quite “young”, and then later, at the end of the driveway again, we were thrust into middle age when he was whisked away to Parris Island for Marine boot camp (http://granitegrok.com/blog/2006/10/another_one_deployed_went_not). And again, a hug in the doorway when the Youngest went to Fort Benning for US Army infantry training.
