The children at the bus stop (and the passage of time)

When we bought our house, I didn’t think to ask where the bus stop was. But we quickly discovered that we can see the middle school bus stop from our home. Every day the school bus pulls up in the morning to pick up neighborhood children. Then the bus brings them back in the afternoon.

Thirteen years ago, when we moved into our home, those students standing at the bus stop were so tall. Our children were 5 and 3, and we were just discovering the whole new world of kindergarten. Seeing the bus pull in was a novelty. We would look out the window at the giant teenagers gathering to wait for the bus and then watch as the bus pulled up to take them to school. “Look at the teenagers,” we would say.

It seemed impossible that our children would ever grow that big—mature enough to walk to the bus stop on their own, carrying their backpacks and musical instruments. When would our kids ever be able to stand waiting for a bus without an adult keeping a watchful eye?

The teens would stand there joking around as they hung out at the bus stop, laughing and kicking pebbles along the sidewalk, sometimes playing catch with whatever they had on hand. As a mom of little ones, I couldn’t imagine our children being that tall and seemingly independent.

Then I blinked and one day our children were standing and waiting at that bus stop themselves. They grew, and every year I watched them move farther back in the bus—until they were sitting in the back as giant eighth graders.

I blinked again and they were off to high school. Now we have one in college. Middle school is just a distant memory. When I look out the window in the morning and see the children waiting for the bus, I can’t believe how tiny they are. There are those little sixth graders who can look weighed down by backpacks full of textbooks, children whose musical instruments are longer than they are tall. Then there are the eighth graders, who think they’re so tall and mature, but who now look so young to me, too.

Time flies when you’re a parent. And your perspective changes as the years go past. It’s hard to believe that the teens who used to seem so tall and mature at the bus stop are now so tiny. But it’s also hard to believe our own children are making more and more important decisions on their own, exploring the world in incredible ways, and growing up and away.

There is something about this season, where the days are so short, that makes it feel that time is passing quickly. The hours of sunlight are briefer every day, and the end of the calendar year is approaching. There is nothing like the holiday season to remind me how much older my children and nieces and nephews are—and even how much older I am myself.

I’m grateful for the passage of time. What a gift it is to wake up each morning, to share a day with your spouse, to watch your children grow. I wish sometimes time could slow down just a little. But of course, this season where we remember—and pray for—those who have died reminds us that the fleeting nature of life is part of what should make us value our time on earth even more.

“How short indeed is the time of our passing through this world!” said St. Josemaría Escrivá. “Brief indeed is our time for loving, for giving, for making atonement. It would be very wrong, therefore, for us to waste it, or to cast this treasure irresponsibly overboard. We mustn’t squander this period of the world’s history which God has entrusted to each one of us.”

So, here we are, doing our best to embrace this moment with gratitude even as it slips through our fingers. And one day maybe I’ll understand how those tall gangly teens at the bus stop became such youngsters. It all happened so fast.

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