This summer has started out so very similar to the many summer “vacations” we have had before in our little family. School is out, leisure time abounds (for the children anyway) and we set off to intentionally spend time together doing, generally, simple activities to create memories together. This past year, the kiddos finished 7th, 5th, and 4th grades. They’re getting older, and each year, that fact weighs silently on my mind a little heavier.
Over the last handful of years (it feels like very few, but it has been 7 or so), I have lost two aunts and two uncles, each of my parents having said their earthly farewells to at least one sibling. I have had the sorrow of saying these goodbyes to many people over the years, and the finality of death has not escaped me since I was a child.
My own children are coming to grips with these circumstances in ways they’re understanding much more deeply as they’re growing up. This past winter, we learned the devastating news that a deeply loved uncle passed away. This death rocked my children’s hearts a little harder, because he was an uncle they spent a considerable amount of time with when we would go back to my hometown area in MN. He would randomly show up and spend wonderful hours playing alongside my children, loving on all of us. My kids refer to him as “the best kind of uncle” and their hearts have taken many months to speak his name without their voices cracking or tears filling their eyes. I think more than any so far, this was the death that really left a life altering impact.
Since his funeral, we have had many conversations about spending time with those you love. There’s a song that we all love, “Til You Can’t,” and the lyrics are simple and powerful and remind us that someday, those people you love won’t be there anymore, so stop putting off until another day the time you could share right now.
This lesson has applied to multiple circumstances since my uncle’s passing, but today, sitting beside an algae-tinted lake under cloudy grey skies, I watched two of my children float around on inner tubes, while my oldest sat beside me, digging in the sand, unwilling to participate in the activity. He insisted it was good enough that he came along and that having fun was not a necessary part of the endeavor. On one hand, I understood where he was a coming from, and almost agreed to an extent, but my momma heart turned on the waterworks and silent tears fell down my cheeks. I did not look his way. I stifled any sniffle I felt coming, and I tried to swallow my emotions down so that I would not guilt trip or embarrass him making an emotional scene.
I was not upset that he was resisting the fun, I realized as I dug to the root of my flood, but rather, I was wading through a conversational path we had taken earlier this summer- the “18 summers” talk. We had heard on the radio that children basically have eighteen summers and then they’re adults. Sometimes, it’s less, whether it’s death, taking on summer jobs, or other reasons. We discussed how he’s already 13, his brother almost 12, and his sister is 10. Most of those 18 summers have passed us by, and a few of them felt cheated due to being quite sick with covid and then another recovering from a spinal injury. This summer will feel shorter as of month from now I will have a surgery to repair my foot and will be unable to drive or do much for the rest of the summer. “The days feel long but the years rush by,” I told him. He agreed. That morning we drove in silence for a while until the next song came on the radio.
Tonight, sitting on the beach, I realized my heart was aching for my children and the realization that these days are also going by really quickly, and soon, they’ll be gone. Much like the song I referenced above, we can’t guarantee there will ever be another peaceful day on the lake where all three children could float on the waves, splashing, laughing, and forming those memories that will carry them through their lifetimes.
I finally decided to speak.
“I’m not mad, buddy. I’m not disappointed. I’m just realizing how short these days really are.” I said.
I reminded him of the 18 summers.
“Why do they want to hang out with me? I’m a boring moody teenager. They think I’m annoying.”
“Siblings say that. But they don’t always mean it in their soul. They mean it in the minute, but when that minute is gone, they’re going to realize they were wrong.”
He gave me an argumentative look, but held his words before replying.
I went on to explain to him that now, as a 40 year-old, seeing half a lifetime go by, having spent so many summers orchestrating memories with my children, I see it from a fresh perspective. It’s true that their summers are winding down. Mine are long gone.
I told him about moving to college when my youngest sister was a toddler. I had a two-hour commute to see any of my siblings at that point, when my summers had gone from being at home beside them, leaving to spend it with friends, to working at a camp and never living at home with any of them again. As the oldest of four, I understood how sometimes it feels like a burden to play with or entertain younger siblings. I know how it sometimes feels like you’d rather be doing anything other than splashing in a lake. I understand how you might not want to sit beside your parents for hours on end when you could be interacting with someone your own age who would undoubtedly be more fun and certainly more cool.
I get it.
Thankfully, I have loved my siblings fiercely all of their lives, and as an adult, although they were younger, I still made time and conscious effort to make memories and have adventures with them, often bringing them home with me for multiple days so we could explore, play, laugh, and grow together. I am blessed beyond measure for years upon years of that.
But I get what it’s like on the other side of all of that, to see your grown-up siblings a fistful of times a year. Often, those times are spend reminiscing, joking, and laughing about the years that have already passed by.
I understand wishing that we had even more hilarious inside jokes and fun memories than we do. Yes, we have countless wonderful memories and photos of our adventures, and they are indescribably invaluable, but my heart aches knowing we could have had more. My sisters have become some of my dearest friends, and when push comes to shove, as annoying as we might have thought each other were growing up, any of us siblings would be there in an instant in the best ways we could if we were needed. That love is rooted deeply despite differences and years apart.
But we could have had more.
I am the one who left them behind, potentially like my oldest could to his siblings someday. The effort to be with my siblings when my summers had faded and theirs were still in full bloom sometimes felt insurmountable and I know in retrospect that I took the days and hours we did have for granted more than I would have ever cared to admit at the time.
It’s that hindsight that has me looking straight ahead at the end of my own children’s summer roads.
He stood up and he hugged me, like he has so many times before. I thanked him for coming along. I realize, though I haven’t spoken the realization aloud to him, that at any time, I could tell him that he “has to” come along, and he could refuse, and that would be that. My days of carrying him to the car and buckling him into a seat have been long over.
“I think I’m gonna go get changed,” he told me. Off he went to put on his swim trunks. Together, we inflated his tube, and he hit floated out into the lake to laugh beside his siblings.
We all four talked on the way home about trying our best to pause and take in the moments, to take the chances, and to make the memories while we still can.
“Because someday, you can’t” my oldest said. “Like the song.”
I know we likely will not always been in the frame of mind to see adventures and outings that way. I’m praying I will always have a grateful heart for the days when we do and the patient grace to remember that my children are growing older and more independent, and it will eventually change no matter how hard I try to keep the days from slipping through my fingers.
