Time for Memories

Time goes by so quickly this time of year. The days are short. The things to do are many. I worry that something is going missing. Time is such a precious thing, and we have so little of it. I keep trying to find more, seeing how I might make some.

Then I stop to breathe. I let myself be fully present. I listen for those I love.

I hear their sounds . . . disconnected moments in the past.

On the porch in Massachusetts when my husband fixed my glasses:
I hear my son say,“ So, you finally found a use for him.” How we laughed.

When I wrote a poem for a kindergarten lesson:
“You think you’re five, but you’re only four-thirty,” joked my husband.

My father saying, “If you sleep on the floor, you never have to worry about falling out of bed.”

On our anniversary, when my older, older brother said, “Tell your husband he chose wisely.”

I used to think of time as so big, so unending, so forward moving. But it's not, not really. Time is not an unbending road. Time is moments with the ones we love chained together. Time is what we have to make a life meaningful.

I don’t need to make more time. I need to make more memories.

—me strauss Letting me be