Almost Gone

It's almost time for me to say "good-bye" to my daylilies for another year, at least the ones in my front yard. The ones in my back yard bloom later, thankfully. Like the daffodils and flowering trees before them, these flowers provide only a short, precise period of blooms that seem to last for too short a period of time. Blooming spans, I think, are much like other life passages. My grandchildren regularly make statements that start with "I can't wait until...." It's interesting how children so easily wish their lives away. You seldom hear such sentences from adults. Children have yet to learn how precious is each day that is given to them. And they often seem to fritter their time away doing annoying and frivolous things. Or they wonder what they can do because they are bored. For children the passage of time often seems longer than they do for adults. How could it already be well into the month of July? Despite days that have tended to be very repetitious in the last few months, the time still has seemed to have flown by anyway. Sometimes I would have liked parts of my days to go into slow motion so that I could have more time to enjoy a particular thing. If I were to share an hour glass with my grandchildren, I rather expect that my perception would be that the sand was moving through the little hole much more quickly than they would. My grandson especially thinks that the week he has been here and the week still left of his visit is too long. But for me I know how quickly this week, like last week, will pass. This time next week he will already be heading home, and we will have said our "good-byes." Like the blooming time of many flowers, it goes too quickly and the "good-byes" are said before I am ready.