Landslide

I held him in my arms for the very first time. He yawned. He wiggled his tiny body as if trying to free himself from the cocoon he was in. He opened his eyes ever so briefly, I take a peek. They were green speckled with gold, just like his dad’s. This little face looks a lot like mum’s but the smaller details are a lot like dad’s. How can you not fall in love the first time you meet this little man?

I can only dream he was mine.

For the first time I felt that time is running out. I am in the half-time mark of a regular human lifespan. I’m not sure why in my forties I unconsciously accounted for my “achievements” in that half lifetime. The reckoning turned out that I had dreams I aspired for in my younger years that have not transpired. Equally confronting is the fact that these dreams are those I have built my life around, but somehow did not treat them as most important.

I have always been a dreamer and I dream high. That was me in my teens, twenties and thirties. I dream and I achieve despite some hiccups along the way. When things don’t seem to come to fruition, I reason to myself that perhaps I just needed to exert a little more effort. A little more patience. A little more prayer. A little more faith. Until finally the dream that was birthed matures to its fulfillment.

Forties is a different story, though. For the first time a landslide came crashing on dreams I believed to be still up there for me to reach, for me to climb. The “a little more” formula that seemed so effective before now doesn’t make sense.

How can I give “a little more patience” when my biological clock tells me that time has ran out?

How can I say “a little more prayer” when I know that time doesn’t turn backwards? Time doesn’t wait, it always moves forward.

How can I exert “a little more faith” when I know that God is closing the door? Will God open a window? I don’t know.

I can only mourn the death of that dream.