Treasured moments of today ease our yearning for the past

The Boston Herald

Strange, the things that break your heart, then suddenly don't one day.

A school bus stops across the street. It lurches and screeches and then starts up again. I watch it from my window, see the shadows of children inside, and I think, when did this stop hurting?

For a long time after my youngest child finished school, that sound made me ache. I missed what it meant - her racing into the house with tales of the day. Her opening kitchen cabinets, saying, ``What's there to eat?'' I missed the continuity. How many years did a bus bring someone home? How many afternoons had I stood waiting at the door?

And then one day everyone was gone - to other schools and other places. And though the bus still stopped, no one came bounding into my house anymore. And it hurt, the screech of brakes. And no one at the door.

Now I watch the bus without longing. Now I can look at the calendar and think it's April vacation week and not ache for what was - time with my kids. Movies. Games. Trips.

I remember when I couldn't drive by the house I grew up in without seeing the ghosts of the past. I saw everything. My father in the yard, my mother in the kitchen, Vera Campbell next door, Mrs. Lyons across the street. The Brodericks. The Tantillos. The Butlers. And it hurt to look back because I couldn't go back. And that's what I wanted. To be there with the ghosts. To spend one more afternoon on the swings with Rosemary. To play tag with Janet Butler under the street lights. To wake up one more time in my old room, in my old bed and walk downstairs to my mother.

I still see the ghosts. But they don't make me yearn anymore. Watching them is enough. Watching them is like watching a favorite movie. For years I couldn't drive past the Unitarian church and look in the window and see little girls dancing without missing my little girls. I couldn't see a Little Leaguer without missing my Little Leaguer. I couldn't watch families with young children without missing my young children. It wasn't constant, this missing them. It came the way a stitch in the side does. And it took my breath away. Now, and I don't know why, but I'm OK with all these things, my past, my children's past. Is this because of time? Is time really a healer? Or is it because the past can't hold sway over the present anymore? Because there are children in the family again, my daughters' children, and the present is now the best place to be?

Sure, I would love to sit on my front steps with Janet Butler swatting mosquitoes and telling stories, planning the rest of our lives. I would love to ride no-hands around the block, play in the schoolyard with Rosemary, walk to the Dairy Queen, read Little Lulu comic books and feel my mother's arms again. But I'd rather be sitting on the family room floor with Lucy in my arms, singing to her and reading ``Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see?'' And yes, I would love to watch my son play baseball one more time, and my daughters dance. I would love to have them around this week, to be going to the movies, crowds and all, and to Nantasket, which we always did on the first warm day of the year. And to hear their little kid voices and to feel their little kid energy.

But I'd rather be sitting in a glider holding Adam and listening to him. I

I thought being a child was the best. Then I became a mother and thought this is even better. Now I'm a grandmother and the things that used to come along and poke me in the heart don't seem to anymore. Maybe they will again. Maybe a school bus will stop in front of my house next month or next year and I'll look up and my heart will ache. Or maybe I'll be too busy with Adam and Lucy to notice.