Time Goes By...

 I remember wondering how my mother could wake up at 5AM.  She would call me mid morning and tell me she was going to take a nap because she was up so early.  As I sit at my computer at 5AM typing I realize being the only one awake in my household has its perks.  It’s so quiet and peaceful.  No phones ringing or people calling my name; no one needing my attention but me.

As I age I find sleeping through the night eludes me.  I fall asleep reading or with the TV on but wake to the sounds of my spouse snoring or the cat throwing a toy mouse down the stairs or the paper thrown and hitting the driveway.  My ears that used to be tuned to the sounds of sleeping children now pick up any and all night sounds.    Am I like my mother?

In hind sight the days of waking early with a house full of children and the voices getting ready for their day were music.  Now at times the silence is deafening.  It seems I can hear my heart beat.  I miss the sound of a lunch bag being rolled down when I finished packing it.  The sounds of a car pool horn.  The sound of a child annoying a sibling when they should be getting dressed or best of all the sounds of children turning over and going back to sleep when they realized they had a much loved snow day.

It’s sad no one told me I how time would fly and I would look back and wonder why time flew by.  I listen to my daughter talk about her household and hear my own voice talking to my mother about mine.  Now I know why my mother got up at 5AM.  She too was thinking about time gone by.  Didn’t they write a song about that?