Seedlings and Sunrises

This is one beautiful sunset. I would love to be able to say that I took this photo, but I did not. Someone took it for the Gilbert Farmer’s Market and posted it. I just love the look of the sky. I love the glow of the clouds. I was thinking about sunsets and sunrises because it is Prom seasons. The children of my friends, and my niece, have all recently attended their Senior Proms. I remember when each of them were tiny children. My goodness the years have flown. Remember the achingly poignant song from Fiddler on the Roof? I am talking, of course, about Sunrise, Sunset….you know, the one that has the part that goes “is this the little girl I carried, is this the little boy at play; I  don’t remember growing older, when did they?” a little later in the song is the line that says “seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers, blossoming even as we gaze”. Whether we are sunflowers or trees, we grow and change…

Now, anyone who has ever planted sunflowers knows they take quite awhile to grow, and of course, so do trees.  Yet once they are full grown, the elapsed time seems like nothing. It is breathtaking to consider how very quickly children grow up. Yet the years ahead will be just as precious.

I remember weeping when my son got on the bus to kindergarten. How little I knew that the ensuing years would be every bit as precious. Each of our days and moments are precious. We weep as we bid goodbye to the precious times gone by. Yet we welcome with open arms the years that await us, don’t we? We held their hands when they were tiny…they grow up and we hold each others hearts and dreams….it is a beautiful, beautiful thing.