Time

It seems as you get older you're faced with realities that were always part of life, but didn't seem to necessarily pertain to you. Death is something that has always seemed far away, out of arms reach, so far from today that it doesn't seem right to waste time thinking about. As people around me age and die, I've slowly started to realize that time has slowly changed me. Changed me from the youthful innocence that time is never ending, to the older harsher reality of limited time. It seems so odd to have passed from "young", onto something else. I'm not old enough to be considered "old", but I'm no longer young. I look at my children and I can remember being their age, doing the things they're doing. Seeing life again through their unjaded eyes makes me wish I would have appreciated that time more. Breathed each blissful moment in and held on to it longer, instead of foolishly thinking they'd last forever. If I could take back all of the times I thought "I'll do it later", "I'll see them next time", and tell myself to take advantage of the time given to me. I would have spent more time with the people I loved, more time in the places I loved. Now those people and places are gone, and my heart aches for them. The gentle smile from my grandparents, the way their house smelled of sweet summer breezes, the slow warm afternoons that gave way to beautiful summer evening talking around their kitchen table. It's painful.

How can we teach our children this important lesson? How do we keep them from making the same mistake? Is youth so iggnorant and blind? I guess I know that answer, I've lived that answer.