Let me begin by thanking the astonishing number of you who took the time to reach out to me to wish our cat, Beau, well.  In my last essay on Surrender I shared that Beau had taken ill and we were on an unknown pathway.  It was a lesson in surrendering control, taking things day by day, and not getting ahead of what we knew.  Unfortunately, in the short time between publishing that essay and starting to write this one, Beau’s health declined rapidly.  After three visits to the Emergency Vet to drain fluid building in his chest cavity and long discussions with both our vet and the surgeon about what might lie ahead for him, we made the hard yet compassionate decision to let him go.  Last Wednesday morning, we dripped tears onto our little boy’s head as we soothed him across the rainbow bridge.  His breathing slowed as his little body relaxed and he finally rested.  We are simply heartbroken.  His is a gentle soul, gone way too soon.  We just didn’t have enough Time with him, although we got an awful lot of love out of those five short years he was ours.

It’s no secret to anyone that time is the great leveler.  No matter how much money or power or influence you have, you cannot reverse time or make it stand still.  Sure, there are things you can do to improve the quality of the time you have or to get more out of time, but you can’t control it.  Ignoring the detailed physics of Einstein’s space/time continuum for the moment, time marches linearly forward for us.  What we do with the time we have is mostly up to us.

I think back to the late 90’s when I was living in Mexico on an expat assignment.  I lived in an area about two hours north of Mexico City that is a beautiful place.  It’s far enough south to never get too cold; it’s high enough in elevation to never get too hot; and, it’s in a semi-arid climate so it never got too humid.  I was living in eternal springtime.  I would take walks, saying to myself, “Appreciate this EVERY DAY.  You are living in paradise and it won’t last forever.”  I didn’t, of course, appreciate it every day.  There was work and the stressors of living in a foreign country and I would find myself missing “home” regularly.  But there were also many, many days of joy when I did indeed remember my mantra to appreciate each day there.  I knew time was limited.  I wanted to eke out as much happiness as I could.

I am not breaking any new philosophical ground by writing on this topic.  We all know that time is a limited commodity and that we should take the time to stop and smell the roses.  And we all get lost in day-to-day minutia that keeps us from focusing on the joy.  I’m writing about this right now simply because I feel that lesson very acutely.  I am navigating all the “firsts” without Beau.  The first morning without feeding him breakfast.  The first time going to put in eye drops and not having him follow me to get Greenies, which are on the shelf below my drops.  The first time sitting in the lounger in the bedroom where he always would jump up and snuggle me.  While I tried to appreciate each interaction, there were certainly times when I’d push him off of my lap because I wanted to get up or he was chewing my headphone cord while I was on a Zoom call with my college friends.  I don’t think I ever missed appreciating his cuteness, which is why Facebook will remind me of him several times a month for the rest of my own life.  (How many pictures can I post of one cat?  A lot.)  I just figured I’d have him for at least 10 more years than I did.

When I was a kid, time seemed to go so slowly.  There was no problem living in the present.  Summers lasted forever.  At the beginning of each school year, it seemed like an eternity had passed, in good part because everyone seemed to change so much over those short summer months.  Four years of high school and four years of college seemed to pass slowly (compared to how time passes now), probably because we packed so much living into those years.  I was growing by leaps and bounds, each year bringing such different challenges.  Now, of course, four years passes in the blink of an eye.  Trish and I have been married (mentally calculating) over six years.  I feel like we just met last year!  And yet, reminders of the passage of time are all around.

We spent the weekend at a family wedding and I was acutely aware of several aspects of passing time.  First, I must say it was a very…regular…wedding.  I use “regular” purposefully, instead of “normal”.  It was in a beautiful setting; there were around 200 people representing four generations; there were two beaming sets of parents; there were neighbors and relatives and friends; there was a charming and funny rabbi (as all good rabbis are) under a chupah draped with tallitot from both families.  The only thing a little “not regular” was that there were two brides.  Everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING, was just as you’d expect from a joyous family wedding.  I marveled at the passing of time and was so happy that these women could experience something I never could have even imagined when I was their age.  I have to admit that, in some ways, I was jealous.  While there are still certainly barriers and struggles to being gay in this world, they came of age at a time when they could date and learn how to be in a healthy relationship in a reasonably supportive atmosphere and this gives me hope that their union will truly last.

I was also acutely aware of how the passage of time changed how my generation approached these family lifecycle events.  When our generation was “the kids,” we ran around and danced and played.  At the Sunday morning brunch, the brides were telling us about the after-party and the after-after-party.  We were in bed by 11:00 and proud of ourselves for staying up that late!  Now, we’re the “parents”.  The music WE liked was played early.  Later on, when the band was playing music we didn’t know, we sat at the tables and talked—just like our parents did.  That “cousin” bond is still strong; it’s just different now.

So, as I settle back into my usual schedule, I am reminding myself to be present.  I feel like I lost so much precious time in my adult life waiting for something to happen—to get through college or grad school or through a work assignment that was not very fulfilling.  I kept hoping I’d be happier when I reached some goal or when something difficult (sometimes a relationship!) would draw to a close.  It took meeting Trish for me to realize that this is it:  each day mattered.  I’ll be sad about Beau for a while, I know, but Bridget is still here and needs lots of love.  She is a bit out of sorts, but is adjusting.  I think her biggest issue is that she now only gets to eat one cat’s worth of food since her brother is no longer leaving leftovers for her.  Loss is a part of life and I know there is more loss to come.  But there is also more joy, like this weekend’s wedding.  Stay present, Sherri.  There is still time.