It seems like just the other day I was writing the blog post about the road trip song “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” in the countdown towards my last child’s high school graduation. The event is now exactly 30 days away. That’s one month, people! How does time fly by so quickly like that? I can remember days creeping by ever so slowly other times in my life when I just wanted Father Time to whisk me up and carry me through painfully long days and weeks. I remember as a teacher hitting January and thinking it’s the half-way point but then realizing it would be a long six and a half months until school got out (which is definitely not a half-way point). The days would not pass fast enough. I have also experienced the one-minute-at-a-time painful journey coming through the dark tunnel of adversity when the light seemed so far in the distance. Faith and perseverance were what kept me moving. That excruciatingly slow passage of time is opposite from what is taking place now.

The calendar pages keeps flipping:  February, March, April, now May! Every so often I ask Alexa aloud in the kitchen, “How many days until June 8?” Her response startles me as the number keeps shrinking. This morning, “There are thirty days until June 8, 2019,” she answers in a complete sentence. Thank you Alexa.  Perhaps the question I should be asking is about June 9th, because that is the day he leaves for college. He graduates one day and leaves for summer school and football the next day. Maybe now it is understandable why I so desperately want time to slow down.

I am not the only one in the house who will miss my son. Besides Papa Bear, the puppies and Sansa will definitely notice his absence. The other day I found Sansa sleeping on his graduation gown. I did not have the heart to move her. She is feeling what I am, we are happy for him but we just don’t want the weekend of June 8th to get here so soon!