"Speak to us of children"

This weekend our two boys came up to celebrate their birthdays. They are five years apart, but their birthdays are only 3 days from each another. Since we couldn't get together in a couple of weeks, on their birthdays, we decided to celebrate early. One will be 40 yrs. old and the other 35 yrs. So... that means that their Dad and I are...., um.... old. How does this happen? It seems like just yesterday that we watched them graduate from College. Where did all those years go? Those little boy years of not quite knowing what you're doing, but acting like you do. The years of sickness in the middle of the night, the tooth farie and little league. At some point you stop washing their little bodies in the bath tub and they start taking showers. That happens about the same time that they stop talking in complete sentences: Just yes/no answers and "Oh Mom." Could it have been so long ago that our youngest came home, in tears, because someone told him there wasn't any Santa Claus?...., and the reality, on his sad little face, that this also meant there must be no Easter Bunny either. That's when I started wondering about the wisdom of adults.

Now they're the adults. The oldest is head of the computer support for a large university in the bay area and the youngest is a manager for a health insurance company near Sacramento. We're so proud of them.

Now I have two grandchildren to love and play with. It's almost like "going back", only not as much work. It's way more fun to be "Noni and Papa", and we get to babysit any time we want to

and then......., take a nap.



I'm reminded of THE PROPHET by Kahlil Gibran



Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, and

yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the

house of tomarrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children, as living arrows are sent forth.



....there is more, but this will do.