Time Keeps On Slippin Into the Future

Have you ever been on one of those moving sidewalks that are used in airports? I love those things except when I'm on one and these skinny people are trotting alongside chatting and laughing, carrying two tons of baggage and still able to eventually pass me on the moving sidewalk.

Anyway, back to my thought-sometimes I feel as if I'm on one of these sidewalks moving in slow motion and all around me the world is moving, eventually passing me and I'm left staring at the backs of others who have pulled ahead of me. Getting a bit impatient, I start walking, trying to keep up w/life but the sidewalk's moving too slowly. Now I'm becoming more nervous and start running, trying to speed up or just stay in sync with my life and all too often I'm left behind.
Everytime I look around at my life and all the changes, especially since October '06 I get nervous 'cause so much has happened and I'm struggling to keep up with it all.

Sometimes I just want to go back to the summers of my youth when my family and I traveled throughout UT. I don't often revisit my childhood because it's so full of the abuse my brothers and sisters suffered from my father. I used to play a game when I was young; to forget all the instances of my father. I became so good at this game that I've covered a lot of my childhood, including friends, teachers, pets etc.

My father and I didn't have much of a relationship during my teens and up until he was felled by a stroke in 1991. At that time, working w/my mother to provide healthcare for my father, watching as he couldn't feed himself, stand by himself, dress himself or anything himself, I had to put aside those feelings I'd been harboring and start helping my father. When my father left we had a pretty good relationship. It wasn't warm and fuzzy by any means, but it was amiable.

How did I get on this? Okay, going back to what this original post should be about-time slippin away.

Tonight felt like one of the summers my Aunt Grat and Big Daddy would load up the children and drive from Boise to Ogden, UT to run revivals for the service men and women of Latham AFB. Sometimes we'd have services in the churches, other times (the best times) we'd have the services in the local parks.

My Aunt Grat would start singing and Uncle Al would be on his guitar throbbing out praise while we children would clap and sing and dance around. The older Saints would also be swaying to the music, singing and keeping the beat w/their large and powerful hands.

During the offering parts of the service we children were allowed to run around the park to get water, use the restroom and enjoy our last taste of freedom before having to sit and listen to Bigdaddy preach. Because I was always fat and asthmatic, I didn't run around as much as the others. I'd find someplace to sit and just look at the fading sunlight. I'd look eastward to find the brightest star then look westward to find the star strong enough to shine through the sun's fading power.

All too quickly we'd hear Uncle Al's guitar tune up w/the last song, signalling that the preaching was about to begin. We kids would all shuffle to empty seats and stare at our now dusty shoes, watch the adults and allow the beautiful voice of my grandfather to lull us (relunctantly) to sleep with the Promises of God ringing in our ears.

Looking at the warm AZ sky tonight I automatically looked for the brightest star in the east and tried to find the west star. That's when the memories came flooding in. This time, when I thought about all of my loved ones who have gone on before me, I felt as though I was on this slow moving sidewalk watching as my loved ones all went on ahead of me and no matter how I rushed or tried to speed up, they still left me.

Time keeps on slippin, slippin, slippin into the future. The great thing about this--I'll see them again.