Topic: Writing and Poetry
Time.
A nonspatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.
A system of measurement. A period. An interval.
Throughout the ages, we have measured time through an assortment of different means. Sun dials, henges, hourglasses and so forth to our modern clocks.
We monitor it by watching the clock in classrooms and in the work place. We measure it when cooking or when watching an athletic event. We make record of it when we have completed a task in our busy day-to-day schedules, or when there is an important appointment we must keep.
Poets and artists have captured time in their works of prose and on canvas.
"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day" - William Shakespeare
"Time! the corrector when our judgments err." - Lord Byron
"Time is the wisest counselor of all." - Pericles
We are told many things about time; "Time is precious" "Time is money" or "Time is a mere drop in the bucket."
I suppose it depends on your point of view, really.
In times of sorrow or regret we might view time as being something we should cling to, as in memory or a recounting of that which we did not appreciate in the past.
In times of celebration we might see time as something less meaningful, as in the ends justifying the means, that our trials are inconsequential within the reality of reaching our goals.
We often complain about our time is being wasted over simple things. A movie we disliked but endured, a line we had to stand in, a phone call, an opinion editorial in a newspaper. The list is endless.
We can't measure our time here on earth, however. Each one of us has a different expiration date label, and therefore we can't adequately determine how our time should be divied up between our birth and death.
We live. We die. Everything in between is an uncalculated portion of time. How we spend it, is really up to us. There's really no sense in us analyzing and fretting over our time. Time doesn't stop, even when we our lives do.
Whether death comes at childbirth, young adulthood, or in our elder years... it is always too soon because our hearts will not let us think or conceive of the inevitable conclusion of our time, or the ones that we hold most dear. Time, exists as an entity in these things, and will always be viewed as an unfair judge who has observed and condemned, no matter what the circumstances; disease, accident, homicide, suicide or natural causes.
I believe death impacts us so dramatically because it is an event that stops time for us. It removes an essential ingredient, a person that is an essential part of how we live our lives, from our overall existance. It forces change upon us in how we live our lives.
The first death I experienced was when I was 14 years old. My grandfather, well into his 70s, died from heart disease the day after I visited him in a nursing home. The first tear that I shed over that experience was in accepting the knowledge that I would no longer be able to talk with him or hear his voice. The second was shed over the realization that I would not ever lay eyes upon him again. I knew then, as I know now in the loss I have experienced since then, that when someone we love passes it forever alters our lives.
As a mother, time has passed in what seems like a microsecond from the birth of my son into his now young adulthood. As if within the time it takes one to snap their fingers he went from learning to walk, to wanting to major in Chemical Engineering. He will be 19 years old next month, and yet it doesn't measure in my heart and mind that he has been a part of my life for that many years... and yet, in some ways, it also feels like a lifetime. Time and love are strange partners.
You can estimate seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years... but you can't estimate time in thought, dream, or emotion because as part of the human condition these things cannot be measured by it. Time exists only as a reflection of joy and the pain of loss, a duller image or a shadow of what we feel more deeply.
These feelings, hopes, dreams, and fears are substantial and deeply personal, and yet shared by all of humanity. They are as essential to us as our physical nature of muscles, organs and bones. We live, we breathe, we think, we feel. Time is only a measurement, and you cannot measure something so etherial as emotion.
All we have left is to remember those that have touched our lives and to appreciate now what they have meant to us and what their life gave to us.
Time will keep moving.
In memory of ISU student, Gerald Smith Jr., of Terre Haute Indiana, and my Aunt Carol who passed away from cancer this year.
Thank you, and brightest blessings.
