For the Friends of My Childhood…
Written just for you, by the Q.O.E.
Consider the years and the effort and miles
That separate us from our lives as a child…
The distances travelled, the places we’ve seen…
Adventures and faces encountered between
The children we were and the elders we are…
The dreams of our youth, when we aimed for the stars.
Possibilities endless we anticipated…
We played and we partied, and then graduated.
Early we lost a dear few in our number…
War took its toll…illness split us asunder
Before some could realize where they might go…
The woes of the world claimed dear ones we had known.
But, all of the rest of us picked up the threads
Of life and of living…we galloped ahead…
We went right to work…or continued to train…
Our dreams sometimes changed, there’s no need to explain.
For life has a habit of changing our tune…
A fork in the road…a new phase of the moon…
A big disappointment…a sudden surprise…
What seemed carved in granite can still be revised!
Most of us married, though some never did…
Many producing a slew of great kids…
Our kids and their kids – in-laws in attendance –
Are still quite involved in producing descendants.
It might be a thousand…or maybe it’s two…
It’s always amazing what hormones can do!
Imagine the numbers of new little feet
That keep on Ka-thumping on life’s busy street!
Decades rolled on and our footsteps slowed down…
We are no longer dangerous out on the town!
Time curbs ambition and that inner fire…
The passions that drive us toward what we desire.
We learn to be patient…less likely to roam…
To cherish the simple, sweet comforts of home.
And, somewhere around reunion five-oh…
We realized that some things were starting to go:
Youth! Upon which we had had a firm grip…
Had somehow given our classmates the slip!
Who were these silver-haired lassies and lads
And, when did I start looking more like my Dad?
Reunions were suddenly too far apart…
With classmates who shared a sweet spot in the heart…
We changed it to yearly…then spring and fall…
Knowing – one day – we would not meet at all.
Many are missing, for some have gone on…
Exploring the mystery of what lies beyond.
Others can’t get here…but for those who do…
There is a reward…both for me and for you:
The memories we share and the lives we have lived…
Are one of the greatest and rarest of gifts…
The stories we tell, as each meeting flies by…
Leave a catch in the heart and a sheen on the eye.
Plus, each time we gather, when driving away…
We don’t know the time, nor the year or the day…
That will be the final reprise of our song
That we have been “singing” nearly life-long!
For our paths are designed by the cards we are dealt…
But, I would not have shared mine with anyone else.