Time marches past us, it is said faster as we grow older. I believe that for parents there is an amazing time warp. For us time layers itself with truly unpredictable memories. Beginnings and endings twine together, and as if on some kind of hyper active fast forward your child is an adult. Yet you, the parent have barely breathed.
I started my time trip this morning as I drove by the Marriott in Middlebury, and the memory of walking into the place with my oldest son, just two years ago, on the night before his last high school football game. We didn’t know than that it would be a long time before he would play again. I was headed today for the Vermont’s NorthSouth Senior Football game, to watch for the first time in two years the game without one of my son’s in the field. I don’t mind saying that was sad for me.
I was sitting on cement bleachers watching high school seniors, dressed in white jerseys for the North, and green jerseys for the South. But to tell the truth, for me that field was populated by eight year olds in red jerseys, playing for the Moose. I saw little boys playing a game that would define our family life every autumn, for the last 12 years. It’s funny to realize that I don’t really remember a single touch down, but I remember the pride I felt as I stood on a side line and watched one or both of my boys take the field, and than walk off at the end of the game, somehow one step closer to being already grown.
As if this little memory trip was on roll, it drifted off onto the road home with me. I found myself traveling down Route 30 from Middlebury to Manchester in reverse of a trip I took years ago with my oldest. It has to have been seventeen or eighteen years since my son; who would have been about three, was strapped into his car seat for a trip; that in one form or another he and I would take many times over the years. My sons and I have picked many roads to travel for a road trip. It always begins with “let’s do route” fill in the number and hop in the car. My boys and I have done many drives; like Route 302 through NH and Route 2; both of them, the Mohawk Trail in MA and the great northern route in parts through New England and this summer across WI and MI.
The first road trip, the one that came flooding back to me, was to do Route 30. I have no idea why I choose the route, and realize that it couldn’t have been overly exciting for a three year old. I remember very clearly that this was where my son learned to locate up coming VT villages by spotting a church steeple. It was the game for that road trip, and his first foray into what appears to be a life time of road trips for him.
As I back tracked that route, I could swear that, that car seat was beside me in the truck. I could picture that little boy sitting there, kicking his feet and looking for the next church.
It seemed to me from my memory that it was a long trip, but in truth it’s a short ride. I found it odd that I didn’t remember driving past all the little lakes that lie along the road. Those bodies of water must have been a high point in our trip, but I don’t remember them at all. Instead my memory was happy to see the big run down white mansion of a house was still rather un-changed. A land mark, a memory mark, proof that I really took a drive on that road some eighteen years ago, with a sweet little boy.
I am no longer a young twenty something Mom. My son is no longer a tiny little boy with a bowl cut, peaking out of windows from a car seat. My son is now grown, away in college working on his second year toward some kind of a degree in wild life. He is now just short of six feet and a truly tuff half back on his school’s club team, after not playing football for a year. I’m an older Mom with a few gray hairs showing, and at loose ends as to what to do with what’s left of my life, now that I’ve been retired from being a full time Mom. But, I have my memories.
I started my time trip this morning as I drove by the Marriott in Middlebury, and the memory of walking into the place with my oldest son, just two years ago, on the night before his last high school football game. We didn’t know than that it would be a long time before he would play again. I was headed today for the Vermont’s NorthSouth Senior Football game, to watch for the first time in two years the game without one of my son’s in the field. I don’t mind saying that was sad for me.
I was sitting on cement bleachers watching high school seniors, dressed in white jerseys for the North, and green jerseys for the South. But to tell the truth, for me that field was populated by eight year olds in red jerseys, playing for the Moose. I saw little boys playing a game that would define our family life every autumn, for the last 12 years. It’s funny to realize that I don’t really remember a single touch down, but I remember the pride I felt as I stood on a side line and watched one or both of my boys take the field, and than walk off at the end of the game, somehow one step closer to being already grown.
As if this little memory trip was on roll, it drifted off onto the road home with me. I found myself traveling down Route 30 from Middlebury to Manchester in reverse of a trip I took years ago with my oldest. It has to have been seventeen or eighteen years since my son; who would have been about three, was strapped into his car seat for a trip; that in one form or another he and I would take many times over the years. My sons and I have picked many roads to travel for a road trip. It always begins with “let’s do route” fill in the number and hop in the car. My boys and I have done many drives; like Route 302 through NH and Route 2; both of them, the Mohawk Trail in MA and the great northern route in parts through New England and this summer across WI and MI.
The first road trip, the one that came flooding back to me, was to do Route 30. I have no idea why I choose the route, and realize that it couldn’t have been overly exciting for a three year old. I remember very clearly that this was where my son learned to locate up coming VT villages by spotting a church steeple. It was the game for that road trip, and his first foray into what appears to be a life time of road trips for him.
As I back tracked that route, I could swear that, that car seat was beside me in the truck. I could picture that little boy sitting there, kicking his feet and looking for the next church.
It seemed to me from my memory that it was a long trip, but in truth it’s a short ride. I found it odd that I didn’t remember driving past all the little lakes that lie along the road. Those bodies of water must have been a high point in our trip, but I don’t remember them at all. Instead my memory was happy to see the big run down white mansion of a house was still rather un-changed. A land mark, a memory mark, proof that I really took a drive on that road some eighteen years ago, with a sweet little boy.
I am no longer a young twenty something Mom. My son is no longer a tiny little boy with a bowl cut, peaking out of windows from a car seat. My son is now grown, away in college working on his second year toward some kind of a degree in wild life. He is now just short of six feet and a truly tuff half back on his school’s club team, after not playing football for a year. I’m an older Mom with a few gray hairs showing, and at loose ends as to what to do with what’s left of my life, now that I’ve been retired from being a full time Mom. But, I have my memories.
2 comments:
DONT BE SAD YOU STILL HAVE THE BIG KID TO TAKE CARE OF. PLEASE PUT UP SOME MORE PICS IT WOULD BEGREAT TO SEE HOW EVERYONE IS DOING.
Working on adding photos and trying to get better about writing.
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