When you’re growing up, adults often tell you how quickly the time will pass; that one day you’ll wake up and realize the moments you spent as a single person with your siblings and parents will be gone.
Of course, when you’re young you don’t really believe it. Life at that stage always feels so slow.
But it turns out it really is true. And even though the passage of time often means moving on to even greater experiences as an adult with a family of your own, it’s sad to think you can never go back to what, in many ways, was a far simpler stage.
Recently, however, I came as close as you can to going back in time.
In honor of my dad’s 70th birthday, my siblings and I decided to surprise him by coming home. Despite our current geographical distance we are a close family and the idea of getting together regardless of the reason was extremely appealing. Then, when we decided it would be even more fun to include only the original Grady Six — no spouses, and no kids — the idea became even more special.
Don’t get me wrong. We love our spouses and our children and we all thank our lucky stars regularly that everyone in the family genuinely gets along. But something about traveling back to those early days of life was the perfect combination of nostalgia and freedom. And it proved to be an immeasurable success.
The impending gathering was the focus of my thoughts for months. Admittedly, I was more excited about this get together than Christmas. Somehow, the regular phone calls with my sister — where one or the other of us is inevitably interrupted by the needs of our children — just weren’t cutting it anymore. And even though we keep a regular group text chat going with all the siblings, spouses and my parents, it’s just not the same as sitting in my parent’s living room chatting until the wee hours of the morning.
Finally the day arrived.
While my brother Kevin and sister Karen boarded a flight from Texas and my youngest brother Brian got settled on a flight from Iowa, I finished packing in St. George and waited excitedly. Because the flights weren’t scheduled to arrive at the same time, we decided to split the surprise into two phases.
Phase one: Karen and Kevin arrived at my house in St. George and we drove the rest of the way to Cedar City, turning up the familiar street of our childhood neighborhood with an extra dose of excitement in our hearts. My mom, who was in on the surprise, was at work, but we knew my recently retired dad would likely be home. We planned to catch him just in time to go out to lunch.
We knocked on the door of his house, and huddled to be out of view of the front windows so he wouldn’t know who was there until he opened the door. It worked perfectly. His expression was one of disbelief, followed by utter joy.
Piling into the house, we all talked over one another (a common occurrence in our chatty family) as we filled my dad in on the extent of our planning and our ideas for how to spend the next four days as a family. We also used this time to set the stage for our youngest brother’s arrival that evening by telling my dad that, unfortunately, Brian would not be able to join us because of his rigorous medical school schedule.
We were lying, of course. But it was for a good cause.
Phase two: After hitting a family favorite burger joint for lunch, we spent the afternoon relaxing at my parent’s house, talking with my dad and cooking dinner for my mom. Time ticked by a little slowly as I was extremely anxious for the final piece of the puzzle to be in play. That night, while sitting in the living room, talking and laughing, the front door opened and in walked Brian. My dad, once again, was speechless.
The beauty of the rest of the weekend was not based on any extravagant plans. In fact our time was spent rather uneventfully. Long walks around town, eating at favorite restaurants, talking, laughing and more talking, but it couldn’t have been more perfect. As we all gathered around the dining table Sunday in our former “assigned” seats for one last evening meal, it felt as if I really had traveled back in time.
Because I love my current life, I didn’t necessarily want to stay in history forever, but man, I cherished the few days we had there.
Such a weekend would simply not have been possible without each of us having incredibly supportive spouses and children. And as much as I know that my job as a mother is to raise my children to move on to independent lives of their own — lives that I hope eventually include spouses and children — I also told my oldest daughter as I left for the weekend, that one day when I am 70 years old it would be wonderful if she and her siblings did the same kind of gathering for me. Knowing what a blessing it is to have siblings who I consider to be some of my best friends, I want that for my children too.
In the meantime, we’ve already started talking about when we can have another Grady Six reunion.
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