Time

I'm struck sometimes by the passing of time. How unforgiving it is - one minute the things are the way they've always been and the next minute everything has irrevocably changed and it's almost like you can't even remember what used to be so familiar. 


Time is wonderfully ruthless. 


My grandma used to have this tiny TV perched on the corner of her countertop at my mom's childhood home. 
I haven't thought of it in years and years. 
My memories of my granparents house usually consist of salmon sandwiches and salads with vinegary homemade dressing stored in old mustard containers, the huge freezer full of Revels and lemonade popsicles, pink walls, the mornings leftover toast on a plate waiting for someone to need a snack, a bowl of stale old dutch chips, opening handmade Christmas gifts (those quilts are still my favorite and my kids use the dresser now), that old patio umbrella, Brandy's big pen in the back, clothes drying on the line, the sink in the porch and the old wood highchair that sat back there too. Oh and the metal stool... 


But the TV I had forgot about. Until today. When our dishwasher broke and I was forced to wash it's contents by hand. The baby was napping, the boy was at school, and the girl had busied herself elsewhere so I brought the computer into the kitchen with me to catch up on some old seasons of Project Runway. And it came back to me.


Soaps were the order of the day on that old tv and I used to love watching the work that happened in that kitchen on lazy (for me, that is) summer afternoons while All My Children played. On this one particular day my Grandma and Grandpa were making doughnuts in their electric frying pan. My grandpa moved faster than he does now and my grandma's hair wasn't nearly so white. I can see brief flashes of the pictures that used to sit on the shelves. My mom was there and they were talking but I don't remember what their conversation was about. Tad was on the the screen... 


It all used to be so normal to me. So everyday. 
And then time passed and to reflect on it now it feels surreal to think it was even real life. 


My grandparents are still here but everything is different. Time has been gentle on my grandpa, and for a man in his 90's, he is well. Time has been exceptionally cruel for my grandma though and now I watch as my mom and aunt struggle to care for her. Some is age and some is unfortunate events that have happened but either way time has passed and she is a long way from those doughnut making days. And it's almost unbearably sad to think of the way things used to be and how easily forgotten it has all become.  


A quick google search tells me that Tad is still wooing the ladies of Pine Valley. 


Time there in that old TV has almost stood still but not here. 
Here it soldiers on.

A blessing and a curse.