Gone by in a flash, 21 years

The Boston Herald

The last episode of "Roots" was on television 21 years ago tonight. It was a Sunday, and I watched Part 8 on a small hospital screen, the sound mute. For a whole week, the 12-hour series had riveted me. But it couldn't hold my attention this night, because, just hours before, my daughter Julie had been born.

Time changes many things. But not this. Not the memory of my husband kissing me goodnight, saying "I'll see you tomorrow," of being in a hospital room, the TV casting a soft light on this new person, mine somehow. So much was happening on the screen, the conclusion of a saga, and so little was happening in my arms.

And yet for hours I watched my child sleep and breathe and purse her lips, all the while thinking that with this one, I would never stop watching, I would pay attention to every moment, my other two children already 5 and 7 and growing up so fast.

I wouldn't let it happen this time. I would stay awake and aware and notice everything.

And it worked that way for a while. With a first baby, you're in a hurry for all the firsts. He rolled over today. He sat up. You read the books and study the charts and you're thinking that at 3  months he should do this and at 4 months he should do that and you wait and worry and compare, and it's all about anticipating.

With a last child it's about savoring.

I remember the day she turned 3 months, wanting to stop time right then. Three months is the first demarcation. Someone says, "How old is the baby?" and you don't give the answer in weeks anymore. It's months after this and then it's half years, "She's 3 1-2." And then it's whole years and then she's 21 and though you've been there all the time, watching, just as you said you would, it still catches you off guard, you still look around and wonder where the time has gone.

It's funny how I used to think 21 didn't count, that people with children in their 20s and 30s and 40s didn't really have children.

They used to have children, of course, but now these children were adults and certainly you didn't feel about adults the way you feel about infants and kindergartners and 10-year-olds. You didn't worry and think about them every minute of every day.

And you don't. You can't. Life won't let you. I used to wait for the school bus every afternoon, across the street, in the rain, in the snow, on the coldest days, all the time my daughter was in elementary school, not just because we live on a busy street and sometimes the cars didn't stop. I waited because I loved the moment when the bus doors opened and she came home to me.

Now every day she crosses dozens of streets alone. She lives in New York and I live here and even if I lived there, I still wouldn't be crossing the street with her.

And yet if I could, I would. That's the thing.

"When are you coming home, Mama? Why do you have to go out again?" she would ask every time I left her.

"I won't be gone long. I promise. I'll be back," I said. Now she says these words to me as she packs her bags to go back to school.

I'm not sad that she's 21 today or that all my children are grown and gone. I'm just a little amazed.

I look at young mothers pushing baby carriages, strapping toddlers into car seats, wiping sticky hands and I think, that used to be me. And I wonder how I got from there to here and I wonder how it's possible that a single night with a crying baby can feel so long, but that 21 years can feel like days.

That's what makes me ache. That it goes by so quickly, even when you're watching, that you can't stop time, even for a minute, that you can't go back, even for a day.