Last month my grandkids and I spent the second week celebrating all of our birthdays. My granddaughter’s birthday is the 7th, my grandson’s is the 13th and mine is the 14th. It occurred to me that we have now been doing this for 21 years, since Nicolette is now 21, Michael is 28 and I’m??. My mind went to all the stages of life that we have gone through together, from feeding to babysitting to homework helping (yes, grandparents are valuable). We then moved on to teaching them both to drive and seeing the satisfaction when they both passed. Now they are adults, still seeking at times the advice from us, but moving on to making their own decisions.
As I was thinking about this my mind went to a song by the group ABBA which was used in the second Mama Mia movie. The title is “Slipping Through My Fingers”. The lyrics are about a parent that is watching their child growing up before their eyes and they would like to freeze frame some of the shared life events before they are gone. In fact, one of the verses is “Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture/ And save it from the funny tricks of time/Slipping through my fingers.”
We all experience these feelings, whether it be with our spouses, aging parents, children or grandchildren. This can even be extended to our home church family as well as our Great Lakes Region, and if you would like to explore that, please let one of the Board members know. Finally, please don’t let any opportunity to appreciate and love each other “slip through our fingers”.
Carl Nawrot