I gaze out the kitchen window at the wind gusting through the branches with its mysterious beauty. This wind speaks to my soul.
With no beginning and no end, the swirling air can’t be harnessed or trapped. The wind is like the days we spend here on earth; felt and known but so difficult to understand.
Tomorrow we celebrate seven years for Boy 3. I have lived in denial of this year, when the boys turn seven, eight, and nine, and our baby Lady will be five in the fall. My heart is heavy with the knowledge that time is pulling them away into a new season.
I open my arms to these child-shaped shadows of mine every day, trying to slow the growing. I watch them run, arms and legs flying, heads tilted back in with screams of joy. I long to memorize the way they call my name, “Watch me, Mama! Watch me!”
Oh, children, all I do all day is watch you, but still the time swirls on.
I know it is not the same for them. My children joyfully consume time like cupcakes: the sweetest part seems to disappear first.
Last night Mr. Fantastic took Boy 1 to UT for the campus Bible Study. They walked by the crowds gathered, young people hanging out late at night, with the Tower lit up in the distance.
“Dad, this place is so cool,” he said.
As they tell me about their adventures, I remember a friend once sharing how amazing it is to see your grown children living the lives God has called them to live. I wonder what plans God has for these charges He has graciously given me.
My heart has pushed away this year of ages five, seven, eight, and nine, but it tries to imagine the year of nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three. It’s a hazy vision, but I see it has a special glory of its own.
I bend like one of those oaks out my window as the wind of time presses me with its relentless will.
Today I will wrap presents and clean the house for a party. I’ll prepare food, plan games, take photos, and try to remember every detail of love that passes between us all.
The year of denial is halfway gone, but even so we have all grown up so much. I gather up the years in my arms, pulling these little people close as the wind blows on outside my kitchen.
