Ninetieth birthday parties don't come around very often, and I suppose it's not all that surprising that an occasional A-list invitee might expire before the festivities begin. I am not much of a party goer under the best of circumstances, and I have often thought being dead would be preferable to attending, but to have gone underground without friends taking notice -- that just seems a bit antisocial, not to mention depressing. When my friend told us the story, we had a good time with it. Sorry we can't be there -- we're just buried. Can't dig ourselves out. Our situation is very grave. We see dead people? I'm guessing they might have to close the [coffin] lid on the death jokes at the party -- a little too close for comfort.
Time passes, sometimes so fast nobody even notices. Today is the first day my youngest child can take advantage of being a high school senior and park in the school lot. A milestone, for what it's worth. It's the first day I am not on call to drive her to school. Yet I sit here watching her eat her breakfast, my car keys by my side, just in case she changes her mind. She is nonchalant about her new status, about her new driving privileges. I am trying to be; after all, isn't this what I've waited for? Freedom to come and go as I please in the morning? I have an urge to mark the occasion of this final bit of cord cutting, back out of the garage at the same time she does, then take off in the opposite direction. I won't, mostly because I don't have any particular place to go. I just wasn't ready for this.
She will graduate in a year, which means the coming twelve months will be filled not so much with "firsts" but with "lasts." I have driven her to school for the last time. I have waited for her in that infuriating end of the day pick-up line for the last time. Before I know it, I will attend my last high school open house, watch her last high school sporting event, wait in the kitchen for the last time to see which outfit she has chosen for the first day of school. For one more year, I will be there in the morning to say goodbye to her, to tell her to have a nice day, to feel the relief each afternoon -- no matter how nasty her mood -- when she returns home again.
Life moves quickly, too quickly sometimes. Forced to sift through piles of collected memories over the past few days as I cleared out my older children's bedrooms for the carpet installers, I tried to recall some of the moments, conjure up clear pictures of a not so distant past. I immersed myself in haphazard piles of photographs, trophies, and certificates, clothing that had somehow eluded the periodic giveaway piles. One baby shoe appeared in the rubble; I didn't know which child had worn it, or where its mate had disappeared to, yet I felt an almost irrepressible urge to hang onto it. With my youngest child still at home for a good chunk of time after her siblings left the nest, I seem to have not noticed the "firsts" and the "lasts" as much. I had taken comfort in knowing I still had another shot. Now I feel as if I am hanging on for dear life.
I pitched the baby shoe. I tucked the good stuff and plenty of not-so-good stuff into boxes. I may not look at these things again for a long time -- or ever -- but I need to keep them with me. I have promised myself to pay better attention. To notice all the comings and goings, the "firsts" and the "lasts," to keep showing up at the party no matter how "buried" I feel.
There's no good excuse not to.
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