Time is sacred, keep some in your heart for those you love

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I held time in my hands and refused to let it go.
Time meant packing bologna sandwiches on Hillbilly bread, tossing long, unruly curls into uneven pigtails, throwing on the nearest pair of shorts and T-shirt, mismatched and unlaundered, grabbing a faded, denim bag and high-tailing it to the forest behind our house for a solitary day of exploration and adventures.
I’d lie on the forest floor, reading about Bunny Brown and his Sister Sue – books from my grandmother’s childhood shelf.
Venturing further, I would stop to skim the surface of the creek that passed through the trees, plotting how to cross it without drenching my first pair of Nikes. A curling vine, knotted in the bows of a solid tree would often suffice.
Once safely on the other side, I would bide my time building huts and houses for the creatures I knew were waiting for me to construct them elaborate abodes.
When the sun began to drop and no longer streamed down through the woods, I would unhastily make my way back.
The end of a day merely meant I would be granted another.
Evenings were spent capturing fireflies in canning jars, playing Ghost-in-the-Graveyard, eating popcorn and marshmallows cooked over the backyard fire pit, listening to Kenny Rogers, John Denver, Tracy Chapman and the Oakridge Boys. Time meant nothing because it was everything and it overflowed in abundance.
Slowly, however, that changed. With increasing velocity, the end of a day meant a loss of time.
Gone were the mornings spent on bended knees alongside my siblings, picking snap peas and zucchini, popping fat strawberries into our mouths and drowning thick tomato worms in plastic buckets.
We no longer held hands at the dinner table in prayer, because supper was grabbed on the run, stuffed into lunch sacks or eaten in the car.
Time became an elusive nothing that faded and bleached, dwindling to mere scraps one would chase, but never catch.
Seated on a peeling wooden bench, watching people flow by, a professor once told me I must stop saying I don’t have time.
“Time is the only thing you do have. Now, what you choose to do with it is your choice.”
I brushed off his words carelessly, insisting I did not have time; I had deadlines and meetings and projects and appointments.
However, when my father called this weekend and left a message on my answering machine, the professor’s words came back. Hard.
“Hi Ang. This is your dad. I’m driving up from Tennessee tomorrow to see my father. He may not make it through the week. You might want to go see him, but I understand if you don’t have time.”
I cried soft tears when I replayed his words, ashamed and embarrassed. I don’t want my father to understand that I don’t have time to say goodbye to my grandfather. Because I do.
I will hold my grandfather’s hands in my own and lean down to kiss him goodbye for the last time. And I will hope and pray I’m not too late.
LIFE Editor Angie Fenton can be reached via e-mail at onyx36@hotmail.com.