Time bandit: Kids growing up way too fast
Published: 6/27/2012 4:43 PM
Last Modified: 6/27/2012 4:52 PM
The wife’s been crying a lot lately.
That’s nothing too unusual, since sappy movies, sad songs and silly stories get her tear ducts flowing. She is a truly sweet and sensitive soul of the best kind.
This round of waterworks, however is different, because our children are truly and irreversibly growing up. Our oldest is almost 21 and rarely lives at home anymore. She works in Tulsa and is almost a junior at college.
Girl two just graduated from high school and will be attending a major state university in the fall.
Girl three is 15 and a tennis player who’s already close to beating her dear old dad. She doesn’t talk to us as much as she used to about things going on.
Our youngest, the only boy, is riding his bike all over God’s green earth to work out, eat lunch or just hit the trails with his buddies.
The Walton home is hardly an empty nest, but it seems to get sparer each and every day. Time marches on, as a country singer once sang.
I’d lying if I didn’t acknowledge mixed feelings about all of this. I welcome the growing independence and hope that someday, dear Lord, it means less financial outlay by yours truly.
More than once, I hate to say, this impatient man has wished that time would speed up so the overwhelming challenges of raising children would be part of the past. I’ve dreamt of degrees earned, cars fixed and dishes done on their own effort.
My wife doesn’t feel that way. She’s exulted in every messy, expensive and loud moment of the early journey through parenthood. She now wanders through a quieter home, crying that there are no more unwanted crayon drawings on the walls. It’s only going to get more empty and quiet and worse, she said.
And I’m beginning to understand her sense of loss. I do miss those precious pixie faces, now matured into beautiful young women and a handsome young teen-aged boy.
I love the people they are becoming. No, the Walton children aren’t perfect or hyper-accomplished, but they’re doing well enough in their lives that we are a proud papa and mama. That’s all right by me.
But, wow, what happened to those little gap-toothed pixies who raced furiously through our home, who joined me in the mornings for donut runs and wrestling matches in the family room. Those free and frequent hugs and kisses, when daddy was the prince or a partner to help recreate Star Wars light-saber fights.
Now it’s talk about boyfriends, bands and who’s going to take who in the next NFL draft.
I’m OK with all of that – except for the boyfriend and bands parts – but I know I’ve lost something I can never get back. I’ll just pray for the future and be thankful for a blessed past.
And maybe get a little emotional about it.
Written by
Rod Walton
Staff Writer
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