A friend from Hoyleton recently had her 70th birthday. I had not remembered this was happening or send any messages to acknowledge it. She sent me pictures of her and her husband with their grandkids. We both were traveling and had a little more down time to engage beyond whether or not there had been any baby news. Looking back, I wanted to know which decade milestone stood out to her as the most significant or impactful. She reported back that it was definitely this one.

She’d slipped past the others without much reflection. But now there was the awareness that she had much less time. It was very strange to hear or think of an event happening 20 or 30 years from now and realize that she likely will not be around for it. I tried to put my mind where hers was because I had a difficulty comprehending. What would one have already heard was going to happen in 20 or 30 years? The only thing I could think of was the 2044 next U.S. solar eclipse in Montana.

But that was only 18 years away I told her. The thought has not escaped me that will all these births, weddings, and baptisms, that it only stands certain that at some point there are also funerals. At the baptism we had two great-grandmothers. Laura’s mom’s mother and my mother-in-law. When we were starting to have children all of them were the grandparents and the great grandparents were still alive. They were next in line to pass on, if everything progressed without a death out of order.

Boys, we’re all going to die someday, I sat on the couch and told them as I reflected and shed the tears. They were present in the moment but there was one who could not resist quoting a line from some Avengers movie, “We’re all gonna die!!” Every so often I do remind them that we need to stay on the serious topic a little bit longer. I feel the shortening of time in the morning wakeup without sun, in the homeschool day that I was not present for due to other responsibilities on my time.

We never reconnected after the airport conversation. “Talk soon” was the last thing she said. Even today it slipped my mind to get a card sent. Why I have not driven down there more times since we left…has it even been a handful? I remember when my “old” friend turned 70 and that was ten years ago. I’d racked my brain for anyone else I could think to tell about the baby and still had forgotten her. It was only a minor lapse though. It doesn’t take long and the memories of care are there again.