Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Jul 22, 2004
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Moving Back
I had the opportunity to step back and take a look at something that happens all around us all the time, yet we never seem to notice it.
To explain what I mean I will have to go back a few years in time, when I first met my now second wife. She came from a large family whereas I came from a very small family and had lost contact with the few that I knew not long after my divorce. During the fourteen years that we have been together we have attended many family functions and it has always been a welcome experience as they do not see a lot of each other in normal circumstances.
The occasion this time was a Christening which was well attended by all the family of all ages. The youngsters were lively during the service which did not seem to affect the minister in his service; in fact he welcomed it, saying that it was a great experience to hear children in his Church.
It was later on in the day when we were all at the public house sharing in a few drinks and a meal, when I noticed all the youngsters climbing up on to the stage and chasing each other around, as kids do. As I watched them playing my mind went way back to the days when I was of that age. I could remember a time when I was running around the stage with all my play mates at a Sunday school function. It was held in the small hall behind our church, and the stage was around the same size as the one that was in this pub. I remember it well as all the parents of the kids that were running around were all sat around the small dance floor which was at the front of the stage - very similar to the layout of the pub that I was in that day, thinking back. Another similarity was the fact that all the parents were sat on the fringe of the dance floor, where I could recall sitting when my own two kids were that age, and behind them way at the back of the hall, away from all the noise, sat all the older ones, the Grannies and Granddads. During the fourteen years of my present marriage, we had sat near the dance floor watching my wives children, now here we were, sat way in the back.
That's when it struck me; we were now the older ones, sitting away in the back, away from the noise, watching our kids, watching theirs. Somehow, in some way, we had grown old. I never saw or felt it happen, it just did! Somewhere along the road during the past fourteen years, the toddlers grew up and we found ourselves sitting at the back of the hall. Yet it was only yesterday that we were at that couples wedding, sitting on the apron of the dance floor watching my wife's children, now we are here at one of their child's Christenings. It would appear that we are the oldies who sit away at the back. Mind you, on reflection, it is quieter.
Where did all those years go? How could this happen? Well there is no point in worrying about it now. I should have noticed the little things like when the youngsters go up to the bar for you, to save your legs they joke, and the quick visits from all the nieces and nephews, who come up to you just to say Hi before they go back to the dancing. Well you have made it now all right. You have moved from the apron of the stage to the back of the hall - not so far in distance, but a lot further in years.
