It all flies past in the blink of an eye (05/07/08)

The chairs were little. Sitting there in the elementary school library, it seemed as if my knees were sticking up around my ears.

I felt awkward and out of place, but probably that's how all of us felt. Sitting on a small child's chair when you're a grown-up has that effect.

It was one of the pre-kindergarten orientation events the school system has, and I was there because my wife was at work and it was easier for me to get away. Most of the other parents were mothers, and all of them were significantly younger than I was.

Connie and I had waited several years before we had our first children, then waited again before we had our last.

The net result was a guy past 40 sitting in an elementary school library with a bunch of young mothers in their 20s and 30s.

But what struck me wasn't so much the difference in age, but the speed with which our youngest had gone from cradle to classroom.

It seemed to have happened in the blink of an eye.

One minute you're applauding her first steps, then next she's leaving pre-school behind.

And instead of slowing down, the speed of her transformation only accelerated from that moment on.

Another blink and she's a rowdy tomboy in a baseball cap, playing catcher on her softball team.

Blink again and she's giving a commencement address as she graduates from Jay County High School.

On Friday morning, I must have blinked once more. Only a handful of minutes after she was a child, we were getting ready to head down to Bloomington to watch Sally graduate from Indiana University.

And I found myself consciously trying to slow down the advance of time.

I had taken a vacation day because of the event, but it didn't feel like a vacation. While Connie scurried around making last minute preparations for the weekend, I found myself sitting in the living room, stunned that this amazing life - a life with so much ahead of it - had zipped from the birthing room at Jay County Hospital to IU's Assembly Hall in a matter of blinks of the eye.

It's a cliché, of course. But it's a cliché because it's true. Any parent will tell you that.

My only recourse was to savor the moment.

We took the slow route to Bloomington, taking Ind. 3 down to Ind. 46, then over to Nashville. I'd rented a log cabin for the weekend, one with enough room for the two of us and for our eldest daughters, Emily and Maggie, and Emily's husband Mike, who were flying in from Boston.

That night, the whole family and Sally's boyfriend Ben went out to dinner, and despite some spotty acoustics had a series of marvelous conversations. We made plans to meet up the next day, then did our best to dodge Brown County deer and get back to the cabin.

Saturday was a blur at times. We got together at Sally's apartment. One of her roommates had been part of the morning commencement exercises, and the other will graduate this summer.

Somehow that afternoon we found ourselves in the upper reaches of Assembly Hall, taking bad digital pictures and having various family members send text messages back and forth.

As commencements go, it was like a hundred others.

Except this was our daughter's, and every parent will let you know that that particular commencement is like no other.

There's no need to bore you with the details.

It was all wonderful to those of us who were there and routine to the rest of the world.

But we will cherish the memory, and that's the important thing.

Because those blinks that tell us a child's upbringing flies by too fast also remind us we need to hold onto those individual moments.

Hang onto that memory of the kid walking across the stage in an overheated high school gym to accept her diploma.

Hang onto that memory of the time she missed a pop fly you hit in the park and it landed on her face. Remember that she didn't cry and tossed the ball back to you.

Hang onto that memory of the day she quantifiably, undeniably could convincingly say she was an adult.

And if you blink, just blame it on the tears.[[In-content Ad]]