“That’s it! It’s time to come in now! We’re going to have to get ready for bed, because school starts tomorrow.”
It was the last call of the summer. It seems as though my kids have spent more hours out of the house than in it over the last few months. They played in our sand pile and they rode their bikes. They splashed in sprinklers and inflatable pools and went racing down slip and slides.
They got muddy.
So so muddy – and so did my house.
We got to know our neighbors (even though we’ve lived next to them for nearly five years). We had backyard parties. We went to the park. We had snocone dates.
We fully enjoyed the long days and late mornings.
Summer was everything I had hoped it would be – even though nothing extraordinary happened.
It wasn’t the year we went to Disneyland or to the beach. There were no vacations or camping trips.
This summer was a million insignificant and perfectly important moments on the back porch eating popsicles and watching afternoon movies.
There were just dozens of really really hot days and hundreds of shouts from my kitchen sink, “CLOSE THE BACK DOOR! YOU’RE LETTING ALL OF THE HOT AIR IN!”
This summer was everything it should have been.
Tonight, as I stood at my back door, waiting for my kids to come running inside, much earlier than most nights… I realized another season was over.
“Momma? Can we play still?” My two year old asked. “Do we have to go to bed now?”
I could tell he was panicking a little… like there was more that he still wanted to do. Like there was so much play left in him.
And on this night, I heard his words in a way I don’t usually. I understood how he felt.
There is something about being told that we are out of time to make us want more and question how we spent what we had.
And on this night before school starts, I feel like I can hear the same words in my heart. As if time himself is standing on the back porch of summer shouting, “That’s it! You need to come in now. Another season is ending.” And I’m asking… “But does it have to?”
Yet, for the first time, I’m looking right at Time. I recognize him. Time’s markers… these endings of seasons… and beginnings of new adventures… they are continual reminders in the heart of every parent that we will soon run out.
That we can’t stop him. We can’t slow time down. We can’t even repeat the time we have been given.
We can just look time in the eye – realizing that we don’t really have a say in how quickly these 18 years go by – but we do have a say in how we spend them. So… I’ll say it again…
There is something about being told that we are out of time to make us want more and question how we spent what we had.
It’s summer’s final call – and a blessing in disguise.
Because if we remember this now? If we thank time for another reminder of another season ending and choose to remember this truth at the beginning of this school year…. and the beginning of next summer and each year the candles are blown out on the cake?
Then when time makes that final call… when all 18 of our summers have past and we don’t have any days left… we will be able to say that it was everything it should have been –
A million insignificant and perfectly important moments that added up to a childhood.
Happy end of summer, friends… and blessings on this new year.
