time slips away

Image from here.

My father turned 60 today. Yesterday, we had a nice day, celebrating the milestone year. I took them to see a play and to dinner and we were all rather pleasant because of the experience. I was distracted by the idea of what having a 60-year old for a parent meant. And then as we were pulling out of the mall parking lot after the play, I realized that there might not be a lot of years left when I could rely on my dad to drive us to places -- the thought terrified me. Not even of him dying, though everyone dies -- just the idea that he would be there but unable to fulfill the functions I had grown up being used to: driving, getting cars fixed, having all the answers, things like that. It made me feel so inadequate and unprepared for anything.

Today, during his all-day birthday party, I had a similar thought again. My grandmother was here for the celebrations, and while I was trying to coax a birthday greeting out of her, I realized that she was no longer as lucid as I thought she was. I realized that she could barely open her eyes because she no longer saw very well. I want to say that this is what a big big family does (you could go on living not thinking about your grandmother because there are too many of you to think about) but I really don't want to use that excuse. I can't believe that so much time has passed and despite my grandmother living a few minutes away, I have not taken the time to know her beyond the cursory "hello" and "how are you" when I come and go. She was lying on the couch (she has been immobile since she broke her hip a couple of years ago) and as I was trying to get her to recognize my voice, I rubbed my hands on her legs and she smiled. It was a little girl smile, a smile I didn't see on her face when my grandfather was alive, or when she was lucid for that matter. It made me realize that it must have been so long since someone rubbed her legs like that -- since she felt anything about her legs like that, and it made me smile that even when she could no longer recognize me, I could comfort her by simply rubbing her legs. I wish that I had given her more, that I had more to give back when she still knew the difference.

The idea of time passing makes me nervous. What have I done with the time that's gone by?