Yesterday was our oldest child's birthday. He is now 57 years of age, his younger brother whose birthday was a week-and-a-half earlier, turned 54, and their sister is right in the middle. There is a year-and-a-half in age separating all three.

It is hard for us, their parents, to believe that so much time has passed. That our children are approaching 60. Not all that much of a mystery since several months' time separates us from age 80. No one imagines when they're young that they'll experience life and all its vicissitudes of happiness, satisfaction, disappointments and grief, and that it will all seem to have passed so quickly, when in old age, they look back.

Our honeymoon photos, near Algonquin Park

 

 

You can look back, but you cannot go back. There is no revisiting what you've experienced other than in your mind, dredging up memory. Memory of how happy we were when at age 18, we married and were finally together as we so longed to be. Happiness when, at age 24 we became parents.

Honeymoon photos at Algonquin Park

Happiness surrounded us, embraced us, incited us to live to the fullest. We struggled financially but somehow managed to get by, even owning a small semi-detached one-story in the far suburbs of Toronto where our children were raised up to age nine, when we moved closer in to the city, to a house we were proud of, before in short order, moving yet again, to Ottawa where my husband took up a new position, challenging and satisfying to him.

We did the usual that most parents engage in, exposed our children to all the values we held dear, supported them in the emotional turmoil of growing maturity, introduced them to the landscape we lived in, and infused in them an enthusiasm for nature and a deep appreciation for our good fortune to be Canadians, living in a free and democratic country where we could criticize any level of government to our heart's content, and engage in volunteer activities giving us another sense of purpose to community and the public weal.

We imparted in our children a love of reading and an acquisitive streak for exploring printed matter. We had lively discussions daily around the kitchen table as we shared our evening meals. We encouraged our children to make friends, to become engaged in the community. Ours was a good life, and it still yet is.

Did I mention how taken aback we are that we are the parents of children in their mid-to-late 50s?