Sunrise, Sunset

There's a wonderful song in the musical Fiddler on the Roof that bears the same title as this blog.  On it's face, it's a wistful reminder that time moves pretty fast, and if you don't look around once in a while, you could miss it, as Ferris would say.  But it's in a minor key, and all through the song, for me, anyway, is the ache that parents feel as their children grow and leave.  It is not without joy, this process, and for us here, there is definitely more happiness than pain, but...still...

When did she get to be a beauty?  When did he grow to be so tall?  Wasn't it yesterday when they were small?

Today, in about half an hour, is the funeral of the kid next door.  He accidentally killed himself riding his motorcycle at 100mph over the Point of the Mountain, and hit the back of another vehicle.  He lingered in a coma for a few days, but then just couldn't make it.  It was his second motorcycle accident in the last two years.  He was 20.  He shouldn't even have been here.

I was bathing my little 2-year-old when I realized that that kid once took baths in my tub.  And then I was sobbing and holding my bewildered toddler.  I've been doing a lot of that this last week.

My 16-year-old and 14-year-old sons are performing in Guys and Dolls, another musical, though one without nearly as much pathos.  They've been fabulous and I've loved doing things with them.  My father is also in it, which is a joy for me (and I hope for him).  Still, I catch myself wondering when my children got old enough to play adults on stage, and watching my father and my son, knowing that a part of him has to be remembering when I was that age.  Remembering oh, so clearly.

I've written before about my problems with the passage of time, and how much I dislike it, so none of these emotions are new and unusual.  Somehow, though, this is different.  The day after Layne died in the hospital, his good friend returned from his mission.  Yesterday he spoke in church.  I do not know how our neighbors could stand it.

What words of wisdom can I give them?  How can I help to ease their way?

I'll sit in this funeral with my almost 17-year-old and cry.  I'm crying now.  What can I tell him?  That I don't want him to grow up?  But of course, that isn't true.  I want him to grow up and get married and have children, just as I did, but I still want to tuck him i bed and carry him on my shoulders and know that the worst thing he'll have to face today is a bad dream.  There are still little ones here.  But holding little Nathaniel does not make me miss little Xander any less.

So, big Xander, little Xander, here is all the advice I have.  We all go.  Sometime, we all go.  My father will go and I will not bear it well, as I know you will not when I go.  But go we will.My father, though, will go doing what he should.  I promise you, I swear on my life, I will do the same.  Please, son, please, my dearest little boy, when you go, be where you should be, doing what God asks.  You could give us no greater gift, nor do anything that would more powerfully draw the sting from your loss.  We will all go.  Please, when you go, go where we know we can find you.

But oh, don't go.