Time Hurries By

Time Hurries By

He walked speedily by hoping that I hadn’t got my eye on him. Stop him! I hear you cry. I wouldn’t dare. Time wasters are his greatest fear. Every minute accounted for in his quest to be – to achieve, make money, buy houses own cars.

I want to shout out, those that lie still in death with flowers at their head and feet have plenty of time.

Stop! My friend. Spend time with family, with old friends. New friends yet to meet if only you would pause, draw breath from your headlong rush. Make time to fit that special someone in your day.

He called. He tried to sit and talk of things we once shared but his mind was already elsewhere. He had to be away; time spent not doing things was time dead to him. That time would have to be clawed back. To be used for something more productive than catching up with an old friend.

I took no offense. Before time crashed in on me, I had been exactly the same as him, in perpetual motion, sleeping with one eye open. Like a race horse waiting for the crack of the starting pistol.

Blind to where my real priorities lay I bawled out the wife. How dare she complain that I was never home. She should feel indebted to me for fitting her in for I am a busy man.

So what if I wasn’t there to see our daughter, Amy, take her first steps? I was busy chasing money.

I couldn’t be there to see how beautiful she was in her formal dress; I’d paid for the damm thing and all the “extras” hadn’t I? And I’d paid good money to have a special portrait framed and hung where our friends and neighbours could see and admire it.

Why was I not there to comfort her when the love of her life tossed her aside and left her with a broken heart? I was a busy man making sure I had money to give her and our son everything they ever wanted.

How foolish and self-delusional can you be?

Now, my pension plans in place, old age and ill health stare back at me from the gilded frame mirror that adorns the fireplace.

Time to reflect my priorities may not have been quite right.

Plenty of time to mull over a life that passed in a lighting flash. Time to listen to the small voice in my head, asking me, “What was it was all about? There are no pockets in a shroud.”

My son texted me today – phoning would take up his precious time.

“Chip of the old block, “my friends used to say. Well, they got that right. Like me, he hasn’t a minute to spare for his old man or his mates.

 

“Can’t make the footie this weekend Dad.”

I text him back” Sometime soon,” I say, hopefully.

His childhood pleas to me echo in my head. “I was picked for the soccer team. Come and see me play, Daddy.”

“Important meetings son – your mother is sure to be there. She’ll tell me all about it when I get home”

I shrivel up inside remembering his crestfallen face. “I’ll be there for sure, next time…son, “I promise. Famous last words, I think. His needs eclipsed by more important things in my day.

Then, one day, to my dismay, he was a man with a son of his own. He needed nothing more from me.

Now I have time. Time, to invade my daughter Amy and wife Jacqui lives.

Amy’s friends are all wrong for her: drinking, partying, dressing like street scum! That can’t be my twenty-something daughter? Only yesterday she was my little angel’. When did she start to call me old man instead of I love you Dad

Why does Jacqui need to go out on the town and leave me alone in this big empty house? I have the place all to myself now.

Too busy to notice they had lived their lives without me for years; their plans don’t include having me in their lives anymore.

House filled with lavish things once thought important to possess, to impress.

Just things, Inanimate objects

Just things, cluttering up the place

Soon they will adorn the shelves of the charity shops.

From designer photo frames my children and grandchildren stare back at me.

Why don’t they come visit me? Don’t they know I am lonely, need their company.

“When we get time… When we get time Dad. Busy lives… We will come – soon as we can fit you in.”

Remembered echoes from my memories when I had no time for them

Time, the only thing left in a lonely man life.

Gemma Hill Dec 2022 ©