The Wonder (of so many) Years - guest post by Daniel Hylton

I promised Hillary I would write a guest post for her when she went to England to visit her brother and his family.  But, with seemingly everyone I love either ill or in the hospital, I have been sorely distracted.  And with serious situations ongoing, this will likely not be my best effort.
Sorry, Hoodoo.

I recently turned sixty-one years of age......

.....became a great-grandfather.....

.....and learned the truth of that which someone, somewhere, so wisely wrote:

                      When I was a child, time crawled.
                      When I was a youth, time walked.
                      When I was an adult, time ran.
                   
                       Now I am old, and time flies.

So many years have passed, and been filled with memories, and yet, to me, it seems like just days have gone by, rather than so many years filled with so many days.

It seems but a month - or perhaps six weeks - ago that I stood beneath the spreading lilacs in front of Gene Asher's home and courted his daughter.

A day later we married.

And in that first week, she bore four children.

In the third week of our life together, our oldest daughter married, our second daughter went off to the Air Force, and our son and his younger sister approached the end of High School.

During the fourth week, we saw another child, our son, enter the U.S. military, our other daughters were married, and we became grandparents.

Over the last two weeks, we gained eleven grandchildren, two adopted grandchildren, and our very first great-grandchild.  And two more grandchildren are on the way this very day - year.

So, a mere forty-two days after I met the love of my life, the cup of my life, indeed, is filled to overflowing.

Yes, I know they are years and not days, but how can that be?  When I was young, I often tired of watching my elders shake their heads and ask the same question of no one in particular, as if they simply could not believe that life had passed by so quickly.  Now I know precisely how they felt.

As I watch my parents approach the end of their time on earth, and witness the advent of new generations, I know that I am blessed with the years I have been given.

Were my life to end this very day, how could it be made more full?

I am reminded of the words to a song I wrote years ago - when I was young.

                     When we all get together, talking over the old times.
                      Mama and Daddy remember us as children,
                      laughing, playing, singing nursery rhymes.
                      But things are changing, we're all getting older.
                      And we've brought children of our own into the world.
                      And it's so strange to look around me
                       at all of us wrinkled, graying boys and girls.

                      Now the sun comes up and the sun goes down
                       and time flows like a river.
                      The young folks come and the old folks go;
                       that's the way it's been forever.

                       And by the time next winter comes, some gray heads may be gone;
                        but Spring will bring a new child, and the family line goes on.....

                        It's a family get-together, talking over all the old times.
                        And now the family is bigger than ever;
                        With all the husbands, and the children, and the wives.

When I wrote that, I could not imagine being a grandfather, let alone a great-grandfather.  Now I am both those things.....

.....and as I watch these days of my life come up in the east and go down into the west, I know the unmitigated delight of having lived for so many days - years - that have been filled with such.....

Wonder.