Childhood is a Terminal Illness

As a young mom, I was hopping.  I was thinking of the next meals, the next activities, or where toddler shoes had been lost in the messy plots of days. I was hugging, comforting, and singing, but I was also scheduling, figuring, and mostly, winging it. 

I don’t recall staring at my child jumping on a trampoline, on a warm June morning, and thinking: “This is it. This is the only summer of seven. He will never be seven years old again. You only get one of these.” I don’t remember turning away from his delighted bouncing, questioning the brevity of summers. 

Back then, I didn’t regularly squeeze my brain for ways to make the tiniest childhood moments more memorable. I didn’t pull out silly chef hats to don while we mashed avocados for guacamole. I didn’t spend solid hours crafting with my children and then showcasing a family art show in the family room, as if we had all the time in the world. But I just did that with my grandchildren because the sand in the childhood hourglass is running out.

Then, I didn’t think much about how glimmers of sunshine add sparkly shimmer to tousled heads of joyful, innocent childhood hair. Knowing this wouldn’t have made me tear up unexpectedly, as it did recently.

I am more tender now.

We Nanas and Grampas have internalized the truth: childhood is a terminal illness. 

Today, I treasure a thousand things, like the sloppy goodbye kisses, the way children often turn and smile just before they leave, and their laughter so hearty it can make them shake. 

Nothing will be the same next year or in the years after that. The kaleidoscope will continually shift.

It will all be wonderful, but different. 

One day they will be young adults, with magnificent, towering souls.

Their childhoods will be gone.

I will miss them.