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And Time Keeps Rolling Along…
I’m currently on vacation in Ireland with my family. My oldest daughter has six weeks off before she has to go back to college to start basketball practice for the coming season. My middle daughter moves away to college this fall. My youngest will be a junior in high school and travels a lot with sports, so she’s not around as much as I would like. For years, my girls were rarely apart, now they’re rarely together, and that makes me so sad. Of course, the whole point of raising kids is to create independent, self-sufficient adults, so I guess this is exactly what we’ve been trying to accomplish for the past 20 years. So, good for us. But this hurts. Especially because when I think of my girls, this is what I see:
A few weeks ago, we decided to recreate that picture – have everybody sit in the same order, in the same pose, with the same facial expressions, and so on. I knew it would be a bit different, but I still found it startling:
The pictures are 16 years apart. My girls were so tiny before, and now they’re 6’4”, 5’10”, and 6’3”. You can hardly even see my 6’1″ wife in the second picture, which strikes me as symbolic.
And time keeps rolling along.
We’re happiest when we dream of better tomorrows, and we’re sad when we realize that the past is gone, and it’s not coming back. So, it’s all good. This is how things are supposed to go. I’m not complaining.
Well, I guess I am. But I shouldn’t be.
We’re having a great time touring around – Ireland really is beautiful. Although to me, the really beautiful part is getting my little girls together, even for a brief time. At times like this, everything is right in the universe.
Well, everything except the pain felt by an old man, as he curses the passage of time.
Published in General
The oldest played in the Sweet 16 this year for Duke – she’s an ambidextrous 6’4″ sprinter with a fluid jumper from anywhere. The youngest has been recruited by major division I schools in multiple sports since she was 14 – she runs like a deer, jumps like a rabbit, and can throw a football through your chest.
So yeah, part of the problem is that they’re taller than me. But the real problem is that they’re hyper-competitive athletic freaks of nature. So Daddy no longer plays basketball in the driveway. It’s no fun. But I get to watch some extremely intense and high level basketball in my driveway. Those two are something else.
There are some boys down the street who play on the high school team. They’re always in their driveway shooting hoops. When my girls come out to play, those boys disappear. I can’t blame them.
Hi Dr Bastiat, We have a few things in common-:three daughters, about the same ages; all sports-mad; and we’re all in Ireland right now. It would be almost perfect synchronicity if it wasn’t for the matter of about 8” per daughter! I do have tall sons,somehow.
I’d love to hear about your trip- where you’ve been, what you’ve liked?
Here is an image of that baby on the left above this afternoon on his first week as an Engineering intern. He graduate this fall in Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering. They grow so fast…
Excuses, excuses . . .
Too bad we don’t live back in the day of arranged marriages. I have three sons, 6’2″,6’4″ and 6’2″ about the right age. If your girls were willing to slum with these shorties it would be a great plan.
Congrats and thanks for a great, non-contentious post.
We just might take you up on that…