Looking Ahead

I remember when we were younger, much younger, and our children were younger, too.  I would look ahead while sitting in Mass.  When I wasn’t picking up spilled cheerios, or wiping a snotty nose with a receipt I found in my purse, or sniffing trying to figure out if that dirty diaper was coming from one of ours, I would look ahead.  I would look ahead, sort of in both awe and envy, at the pews filled with families of older children.  All of the kids with their hair brushed (I would imagine their teeth were brushed too), the mom stroking the hair of one of the kids, the dad with his arm around the mom, the bigger ones on the end nudging the other to sit up.  I would just look ahead while hubby had his arm around the diaper bag ready to bolt if the pacifier didn’t work on a baby that was about to lose it, while I gave the “if you do that one more time” look to the two toddlers.

I can’t say I really wished for the kids to hurry and grow up, but that other pew sure looked good!  Inevitably, when getting through Mass was really trying, an older couple, any older couple that would happen to be sitting behind us would tap me on the shoulder after church saying, “You have such a lovely family.  Cherish this, they grow up so fast.” I believed that older couple, I really did, but I was so tired and kids growing up just seemed a long way off.

I found myself looking ahead in Mass again this week.  My then baby and toddlers are now 16, 13, and 12.  Of course, we now have our little ones, our second set, that are six and three, but they had both fallen asleep.  Even awake, it is nothing like it was 10 or 15 years ago…I’m nothing like I was 10 or 15 years ago!  And here we all were in our pew….big kids sitting next to me, no need for a parent in between so that no one has to sit next to one another.  The only correcting I have to do these days is to get the big ones to quit giggling if for some reason they find something funny or to correct the younger one to get up on her knees to kneel rather than lean back on the pew.

In this quiet time in Mass, because no one really bothers each other anymore and no one has to go to the bathroom and no one has an outburst, I looked ahead.  I saw us…in our next phase.  

I saw moms, their hair a little shorter, their purses a little nicer, and their faces a little older.  I saw dads, their arm around the mom, legs crossed, hair line receded.  They sit, they listen, they serve in Mass.  

I wondered how old their children were now, do the kids live nearby, will they have Sunday lunch together?  Do they have grandkids now, do they have hobbies? Do they still have things to talk about, do they miss the ruckus, are they really listening? 

Or are they looking at the young families, remembering the sleepless nights, the cuddling infant, the tiny toddler fingers wrapped around their hand?  Are they looking at the families with teenagers wondering how that was them just 5, 10, 15 years ago?

Stages in life are very interesting and fleeting. I know we still have a ways to go with the three and six year old, but our big kids are so big now!  They brush their own hair and their own teeth, they participate in Mass and sit quietly during the homily, and they now drive their own car and make their own plans.

I have truly loved each and every moment, sometimes I just didn’t know how much I loved it until it had already passed.  I still look ahead, but I also try to be very conscientious of our time, and to cherish it just as the older couples have reminded us to do!