MAE JULIAN
Can We Freeze Time?
What is it about spring that makes us so happy? Now, I know that people probably get weary of hearing about grandchildren, but they are like spring themselves. So fresh, so unselfconscious. They fit right in to nature as it should be. Bare feet, green moist grass, mud, puppies, pigtails, and little girls. My darling Lulu “graduated” from preschool and is going to go to Grammar School in the fall. Can I stand it? ‑This baby, who came late to us, and has been such a joy, sometimes causes me to fret that she is far too kidnappable. Who wouldn’t want a little girl with platinum blond hair, eyes like the sky itself, wants you to push her swing till her toes reach the tree leaves, dances, makes up poems, and has a giggle that won’t stop? She pulled off her diaper at 18 months, got on the potty backwards, and that was her potty training. She put on her sister’s panties and that was that. Now, I’m not bragging or anything am I? ‑I did notice that at the graduation they all took their bikes, and hers were the only ones without trainer wheels. Oh, there I go again. She climbs better than any boy, can outwit any kid on anything and she is a miracle. Passage of time. How it gets to us. She is my last baby. ‑And time is taking her on. Even her name is changing. Only a few of us call her Lulu anymore. She has metamorphosed into her given name of Lauren. How can that be? ‑I have resolved never to let her be anything but my little Lulu. Just to look at her, smell her, tickle her, taste her sweaty neck with my lips, sometimes makes me feel like if I have never done anything right, she is proof that something went right. ‑She is part of me. She carries me onward. She is my future.
I had an aunt that always read a poem about a child’s hands at every family reunion. Every time she read it, she would begin to cry before the poem was finished. I never could have known what the tears meant until I kissed the hands of my grandchildren. They have been “remembered” in concrete, and every year I notice how tiny those little hands are and how today they don’t fit the molds anymore. So it is with us.
When my son was born, this same aunt wrote to me and told me to treasure every moment, because they grow so fast. I figured that they couldn’t grow up fast enough to suit me! ‑So demanding on my time, so futile to clean up after,‑just to face another mess, breathing a sigh of relief when they were bathed and tucked in at night. And when that time passes, God gives you the greatest gift of all: grandchildren. It also makes you wish you could have your own little children back again. ‑Now I appreciate everything they do and say. I want to preserve it all. I want time to stop. I want Lulu to always be Lulu. Must time be so impatient and so relentless? Can time not understand how precious and priceless this time is? Doesn’t time understand that we won’t tolerate this endless procession? No. Time and tide, you know, wait for no man. It doesn’t wait for any of us. But for now, Lulu and her adopted puppy, Suzy, from down the street, frolic in the joy of spring.
Blessings to all the grandparents who know exactly what I mean.
Love to you all,
Mae
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