When the Petals Drop

“Time is what prevents everything from happening at once.”
~John Archibald Wheeler

Most of the time when it’s my turn to pick up Max from preschool, I admit, I’m running at least a little bit behind. Often, I leave my desktop scattered, but do all I can to ensure the clouds in my mind are clearing by the third red light. My alone time with Max is well earned and I owe it to both of us to make certain I’m able to draw the most from our minutes.

Last week I finished a batch of work early, too late to start something new but just enough time to decompress without rushing my drive. I can almost always use these few extra minutes to decompress, but rarely do I indulge. I parked the car, crossed the lawn, and found myself standing in front of his classroom a full fifteen minutes before pick-up time, all alone amid a surprisingly sudden spring chill.

When I fell to sleep that night, it was with an extra quarter of an hour well worth remembering forever.

Opportunities to observe my children without them knowing are few and far between. I would surrender all I had and slowly pay it back were I offered the chance to nestle inside their heads for a while or more. I was thrilled for a chance that afternoon to be a fly on the wall. Max was in class, back to the window, his teacher pretending not to notice me on the other side of the long pane of glass. The door was closed but the walls were thin, and among the dozen voices singing in a circle, I could clearly hear the one who carried half my DNA.

It was wonderful to see Max as a student without him knowing I was there. He sang, he danced, he took turns. He said thank you, he smiled, he laughed. With just a few minutes to go before the door would swing open and Max would yell, “DADDY!” as he furiously ran into my arms, I realized with the iron weight of the innevitable that it was likely the last time I would ever have the pleasure of seeing him as an unguarded preschooler.

In the fall, Max will start kindergarten and the first chapter of my children’s lives will have finally faded into yesterday.

The sudden certainty was a dull mallet thudding against the soft skin of my slowly beating heart. This summer will bridge the gap between who he was and who he will be. In the fall he will be spending days as his sister has for the last two years, far from our eyes and constantly surrounded by the sights and sounds of a separate life. This is the natural order and all is as it should be, but I still feel it turning in my gut like the aftermath of a rich holiday meal.

The next day, I drove to pick up Mia from school while Max took an afternoon nap. Our family friend Fay just turned six,  so the two of us stopped by her house for a moment to drop off a small gift. We hadn’t been there for a few months, but Mia immediately dropped to the same spot where she’d drawn on the concrete during the last visit, making long arcs of washed out color while I talked to Fay’s dad and grandma, keeping watch from the corner of my eye.

The months have only made her more beautiful. She looked so big there, drawing her name in chalk no different than she did the last time. Her letters a little loopier and her Y a little longer, legs now spilling a little past the edge they merely met before. My thoughts immediately drifted back to Max who seems to have shot up three inches in the last month as the last of the toddler disappeared from his cheeks.

I know I talk about the passing of time an awful lot. It’s one of my most consistent themes, both here and in my most private pages. I can’t help it. My favorite stage of the rose has always been when the blooms are full and the petals are about to drop – the perfume so pungent it permeates the air.

The rose in that moment will never be more striking, it’s scent never richer. The petals drop and all is left to memory.

Writer Dad

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