The Flow of the Sands of Time Stops for Nobody

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Abstract

across from ASU, in downtown Tempe AZ., in the mid to late 70’s. She and her sister, and a couple of other women, were roommates with me in a house I rented. The house across the street had five more women, one of whom I married eventually. There were a couple more houses rented by some guys, and all of us became close friends, doing most everything together. All of us went camping, went to the drive-in, we partied and drank together, and we got into trouble together. We are all still in touch and remain friends after all these years.My best friend still, and best my man at my wedding, married Kimmy’s sister. They are with Kimmy now. One of the other guys in another house across the street married one of the girls across the street from me where my then soon-to-be wife lived. You get the picture. We were all close then, and are still close friends now.All of us are now in our late 60’s and early 70’s. One of the guys in our group is in bad shape and can’t get around very well. And now our friend Kimmy is about to end her fight against cancer. She will be the first to go among all of us in this group from the neighborhood. And that is depressing.As I sat here last night taking all this in, I realized it’s just a matter of time before all of us from back in the “good ol days” will be gone. Maybe I will beat them out of here, maybe I won’t. Who knows? I’ve a feeling some, if not most of them, will be gone before me. And this got me to thinking…My mom had said back then before she passed that without her friends she was so alone that her life wasn’t worth living. “For what?” she asked me. “Why would I want to live feeling entirely

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alone?” I flailed for an answer at the time, and I told her she still had us, her family. She just shook her head and told me I didn’t understand. She was right. I didn’t. Now I’m beginning to, and the sadness and the feeling of being alone is beginning to set in to the point of my understanding.Mom lived in a cottage my sister’s husband built for her next to their house. She had family, kids grandkids around, and friends from the area she had met over the past few years of her life. But without her lifelong friends from her childhood, her high school friends, she was alone. She told me how much it hurt to not have them in her life. This drained her will to live.I have maintained friendships from high school (the same high school as my mom), from college, and from that one Tempe, AZ neighborhood. Already a couple of other friends have passed from my college years. One of them was like a brother. Another one of my best friends passed away a year or so ago. I am beginning to get an inkling of what “alone” means and what my Mom meant.We never know what the future will hold. I am now, and always have been, determined to live to 100 years or more. And I’m unsure just how sad the latter years become when the news of friends passing becomes more and more common as the years ago by. But I have a better idea of what alone means than I did a few years ago.We are truly just grains of sand in time, and time stops for no one. One day, when that hourglass has drained its last grain of sand, I’m sure I will have a complete understanding of the sadness my mom felt. At that point, I too will probably wish to call it quits.</article></body>

Each grain of sand tumbles through the hourglass, marking every second, minute and hour of our lives.

“I don’t want to live any longer,” she said. Then she passed away, leaving an eternity of memories.

These words were spoken to me by my mom just a few weeks before she passed away. Stunned, I tried to wrap my head around her comment. It took me a while, about 8 years or so. She said she was alone in the world, which I failed to understand since she had my sister and her family, and her grandkids around her all the time. Now I get it.

In the weeks prior to her comment, she had lost her two remaining close friends. This was a shock to her. She and they were planning a week’s trip to Florida. She had grown up with these friends and had known them since elementary school. Both passed away just before they were supposed to leave. They had left her alone.

Now here I sit after receiving a phone call. A good friend and former roommate (her name is Kimmy) from the 70's, has cancer and is about to pass. This too has taken me a while to absorb. I first learned of her fight with cancer a few weeks ago. I was shocked and distressed.

Kimmy is one of a group of people from a neighborhood I lived in across from ASU, in downtown Tempe AZ., in the mid to late 70’s. She and her sister, and a couple of other women, were roommates with me in a house I rented. The house across the street had five more women, one of whom I married eventually. There were a couple more houses rented by some guys, and all of us became close friends, doing most everything together. All of us went camping, went to the drive-in, we partied and drank together, and we got into trouble together. We are all still in touch and remain friends after all these years.

My best friend still, and best my man at my wedding, married Kimmy’s sister. They are with Kimmy now. One of the other guys in another house across the street married one of the girls across the street from me where my then soon-to-be wife lived. You get the picture. We were all close then, and are still close friends now.

All of us are now in our late 60’s and early 70’s. One of the guys in our group is in bad shape and can’t get around very well. And now our friend Kimmy is about to end her fight against cancer. She will be the first to go among all of us in this group from the neighborhood. And that is depressing.

As I sat here last night taking all this in, I realized it’s just a matter of time before all of us from back in the “good ol days” will be gone. Maybe I will beat them out of here, maybe I won’t. Who knows? I’ve a feeling some, if not most of them, will be gone before me. And this got me to thinking…

My mom had said back then before she passed that without her friends she was so alone that her life wasn’t worth living. “For what?” she asked me. “Why would I want to live feeling entirely alone?” I flailed for an answer at the time, and I told her she still had us, her family. She just shook her head and told me I didn’t understand. She was right. I didn’t. Now I’m beginning to, and the sadness and the feeling of being alone is beginning to set in to the point of my understanding.

Mom lived in a cottage my sister’s husband built for her next to their house. She had family, kids grandkids around, and friends from the area she had met over the past few years of her life. But without her lifelong friends from her childhood, her high school friends, she was alone. She told me how much it hurt to not have them in her life. This drained her will to live.

I have maintained friendships from high school (the same high school as my mom), from college, and from that one Tempe, AZ neighborhood. Already a couple of other friends have passed from my college years. One of them was like a brother. Another one of my best friends passed away a year or so ago. I am beginning to get an inkling of what “alone” means and what my Mom meant.

We never know what the future will hold. I am now, and always have been, determined to live to 100 years or more. And I’m unsure just how sad the latter years become when the news of friends passing becomes more and more common as the years ago by. But I have a better idea of what alone means than I did a few years ago.

We are truly just grains of sand in time, and time stops for no one. One day, when that hourglass has drained its last grain of sand, I’m sure I will have a complete understanding of the sadness my mom felt. At that point, I too will probably wish to call it quits.