Change Agents

Deb and I enjoy three great children and their spouses.  Our granddaughter calls me Papa T, when she sets aside her two-year-old quirks.  How very recently were our own children two.  And now we are a generation beyond that moment.  

Each of our children and their dear spouses are a blessing and a delight to us.  At our recent Turkey-Day gathering here in Minnesota we enjoyed one another thoroughly.  These days I can sit back and relax a bit more as this generation begins to take the reins.  Soon I will be old and decrepit for real, not just in the imaginary way a high-schooler often sees you.  But right now I am watching the guard change.

I relish hearing of the character of my children via their friends and mentors.  I am blessed to see my family moving into adulthood with skill, character and enthusiasm.  I like hearing the good news.

Still, can we ever be certain of the future.  I may not worry about the future for them, but there is a kind of anxiousness of care that may never leave me, no matter how old they are.  

Tonight a friend toasted his daughter and her new husband.  In our private moment we confirmed the emotions of joy, sadness, concern and relief that mix at these transitions.  He's a fine man with another fine family.  Nice to share their joy this evening.  Nicer yet to know that faith in a real truth is deep in this marriage, as in our own children's marriages.  

Our life is a vapor.  How soon the years come to an end.  We think of our decades as a forever, but they pass quickly, and they pass permanently.  We must roll with the transitions or face irrelevance.  A favorite quote about change:

        Those who refuse to change soon find themselves perfectly suited to a world that no longer exists.

What are you living for?  The past?  The future?  This Life?  The next?