At my nephew’s wedding last month, I watched a grown man in a dark green suit and a sunflower tie say his vows, and I kept looking for the little boy.
He was in there somewhere. I could hear him every time he laughed, that high-pitched hyena giggle he got from my father. It’s contagious. My dad could set off a whole room that way, and now his grandson does too. But mostly what I saw was a man I had known his entire life and was somehow meeting for the first time.
This boy has been part of my life since the day he was born.
My sister and I were lucky. We lived on the beach in a sleepy little town about an hour north of Los Angeles, next door to each other in two funky beach houses. The ocean was loud, the fog rolled in hours before the sun went down, and sand always piled up on the walkway between our two homes.
My nephew was about three when he’d come running over to our house singing “lalalalala,” so my sister would know he arrived. She could have just looked out her front door, but that was never the point. He just loved to sing, and I loved hearing him.
I spent hours with that boy. We drew Teletubbies on a chalkboard over and over again until my hands hurt. We played Thomas the Tank Engine games that we made up as we went along. Give him a hose and some plants to water, and he was set for the afternoon. Sometimes we’d take him shopping at Pier One Imports, and he had to smell every candle in the store. He’d hold the candle up to his nose with his tiny hands and say “Shmell it!” I still call him our little shmell-it boy.
We hadn’t had a baby in the family for nearly two decades when he came along, and the sun rose and set around him for my mother. She loved that little grandson beyond anything. She was the best grandmother to my children, and seeing the joy he brought her felt like reliving my children’s wonderful life.
He was the baby she was rocking when she felt a lump under her arm. Her breast cancer had spread. He was eight when she died.
She missed out on so much. She never got to see who he became. He’s an attorney now, but somehow he never lost the magic. He still loves Legos, and Mario, and dressing up at Comicon, and silly movies. He has a childlike nature that no one can match. He was a teenager who never gave my sister or our family a second of grief, which, as anyone who has raised a teenager knows, is no small thing. He grew into a man who is loved by everyone who knows him, and he found the perfect wife. She has all of his best qualities, and she gets him.
My mother would have loved every single thing about the adult him. She never got to meet the beautiful girl he married, and she never got to meet the grandchild that came after him, or the four great-grandchildren.
Every part of the wedding represented who he is. There were Lego flowers on the tables and pumpkins shooting bubbles outdoors. We danced to Halloween music in masks and glow pop tubes. My little four-year-old granddaughter, who shares his love of Legos, was the flower girl. He’d bribed her with a Lego set to make it down the aisle, basket in hand, dropping flower petals, and when she reached the bride and groom, she screamed, “Where’s my present?” Everyone was laughing.
Then this grown man reached down to greet her, and as I sat there in the front row, a thought shot through my brain like a bolt.
Where did the time go?
This boy was the flower boy at our wedding. This boy came into our lives and lit up the world. Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” has been running through my head ever since.
There was a time when I looked forward to the time changes, especially falling back and getting thrilled over an extra hour. But now I find myself slipping into a different kind of darkness, longing for more sunlight. The dark days come with dark thoughts now, and that’s strange for someone like me.
The mornings are still mine. When the light comes up, I drink my coffee and think about life and all the things I want to do. Travel. Spend time with the grandkids and the family. Learn Italian. Publish the book. Sell the house.
The darkness comes when the sun goes down, and even in Southern California, it feels cold. The clocks fell back, and so did I. I used to love that extra hour. What would I do with it? It was like a gift. I want more time, but a gigantic clock ticks in the background, and it sounds like the beginning of the Pink Floyd song “Time.”
I used to count years. Now I count how many mores.
I’m getting older, and I realize that there are only so many holidays left. Only so many Halloweens with my granddaughter, dressing up and going trick-or-treating with her. Only so many Thanksgivings where we cook way too much food, gather around the table, and give thanks for what we have. Only so many Christmases. I host Christmas Eve, and each year my sister and I decide whether we’re doing Elfster again, and when we should cut out the grown kids, now 19, 21, and 22. The answer, of course, is never, because cutting them off would mean they’ve grown too old.
Growing up, Christmas was always a spectacle. Presents filled the entire house, and insane amounts of food filled several tables. I remember my three grandkids, who are all adults now, waking up so excited to see what Santa brought. I can still see my now 19-year-old as a little child, too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve. I remember their little body vibrating. On Thanksgiving, I’d buy a giant chocolate turkey, and the kids would all dive in and take a bite. New Year’s was my favorite holiday because it meant a new year, a new chapter. Now the book is writing an ending.
So it’s all on my little four-year-old granddaughter. She’s excited about everything. Every toy. Every song. Every crappy drawing I make. I didn’t get our family’s artistic talent, but she doesn’t mind. That’s a lot of pressure for someone who still needs help with her shoes. Every holiday now rests on those little shoulders. In a strange way, she holds up time. When we’re playing pretend, I don’t hear the clock ticking.
But the game always ends and the ticking comes back. I want to see my grandchildren and nephew fall in love and maybe get married. I want to watch their successes and be there for their failures. In reality, there aren’t nearly enough days or holidays left for all of that. I’m in my mother’s age bracket now. At my age, she would have had eight of these holidays left.
I want more.
I think what sent me over the edge this year was everything piling up at once. I lost one of my favorite cousins last month. To say he left a hole in my life would be an understatement. He was one of the last OGs. That’s the only way I can put it. The last of the cousins who completely understood what la famiglia meant and the loyalty that comes with it. With my cousin went time. Time when we went backwards to our childhood. Time when we stayed in the present, trading wisecracks no one else was allowed to hear. Time spent hoping for the future we vowed to hold together as a legacy for our family and pass on to his daughters, my kids and my grandkids.
And the losses kept coming. I watched a friend’s spouse get diagnosed with a deadly dementia, and three others with cancer. I watched my in-laws lose their father.
I remember a poem my mother wrote. She loved sunsets and never missed one. It was long before she was ever sick. I wish I still had a copy, but I remember these words:
The sun is setting, the flowers are in bloom,
I can see it all from my hospital room.
The birds are out, I can hear them sing.
It’s a beautiful sight,
Everything is alright
If I must go now, I’ll have memories to bring.
She wrote about a hospital room years before she ever needed one. Maybe our tap-dancing mom with the big smile and giant heart was darker than she ever let on.
When the light comes, I feel lucky. When the darkness comes, the clock starts ticking.
Even the extra hour isn’t helping.
So tonight I’m making hot chocolate, heavy on the marshmallows, and putting on a Hallmark movie. You know the ones. A big-city girl goes home to a snowy little town, falls for the guy who runs the Christmas tree farm, and saves the family bakery just in time for the tree lighting. Nobody gets sick. Nobody gets old. The snow is always perfect, and everything works out before the cocoa gets cold. In those towns, time stands still. For a couple of hours, so do I.
So much love in this. And yes, never enough time.