Time

Time! What is it? We can’t see it, but it is the most precious gift we have. How much time do we have? Only God knows. What we do with our allotted time is pretty much up to us.

I still have this little Hallmark date book that I got way back in the 1950s. I think it was free, an advertisement from a Tahlequah drugstore, but it was useful. I listed all the birth dates I could think of in that little book. And, when I look back at it now, I ask myself where the time, the years, went. Many of the people whose names are written there are no longer with us.

Someone once asked, “Who is this thief of time that robs us of the ones we love?” Well, I’d say a thief is someone who snatches time from us and that thief could be anything that takes away time we might have spent with loved ones, doing or saying things that are worthwhile, being with those who are dear. And, friends, to my way of thinking, the internet can be the biggest thief of time ever, if we let it. We must be the masters of our computers and tablets because it is so easy for these modern technology marvels to be our masters.

I’ve mentioned the family of five I once saw at a local restaurant. They sat at a table next to ours as my grandchildren and I were having breakfast. Except for two of those people, they each carried a phone and during the whole meal, the only time they looked up was to place an order. All that time they could have been sharing, laughing, enjoying the morning with their family, was lost and they’ll never get that time back.

The older I get, the more swiftly time seems to fly. One minute my child is small, the next, he is grown with a family of his own. It seems my grandchildren grew up overnight, leaving our silly childhood games and all those lovely children’s books behind them. It seems only a blink of an eye that I, a small, earnest person faithfully keeping a date book, was there with my parents in a small house in the country, with hopes and dreams of her own, thinking that she had all the time in the world.

Time! It is a mystery. Where does it go and why is it so fleeting?