texified

I was watching two small children with their father at the coffee shop this morning.  The tiny little girl reminded me of my daughter when she was small.  When the father left he had the little girl on his arm and led the little boy by the hand.

I began remembering when my daughter was that small and how I carried her the same way for so long it seemed.  She eventually became too heavy and I led her by the hand everywhere we went.  Her little hand would always automatically steal into mine when we began to walk somewhere.

There eventually came a time when she stopped holding my hand.  I can’t tell you when that happened.   As with many things in  our lives, it happened very slowly with no discernable point where one could say that this ended and that began.  Just as with my habit of carrying her on my arm, I could not say when it was the last time I carried her.  I certainly did not know at the time that when I set her down, it would be for the last time. So it was with when she stopped holding my hand.  There just came a day when it no longer happened, and she henceforth walked by my side until even that ceased…and then I walked alone.

As I was saying, this all flashed through my mind when I saw the father with his two small children.  And then I began to muse about how all things are in flux; things and people come and go, often with no fanfare, no place where one can say, “This has ended,” or “This has begun.”  It is often just a sliding away, like a distant train as it fades into the distance, its sound becoming fainter and fainter until it is gone.