Not so little anymore, is she? Nothing has delivered quite so sharp a blow to my sense of time escaping as when she walked onto the auditorium stage this evening. A junior in high school. Seventeen years old. Attending her first prom. Less than a month from becoming a high school senior. The simultaneous arrival of all these thoughts forced my breath to catch in my throat....briefly, thank goodness. Probably would've clouded her prom night to have Dad writhing and choking on the floor as she stopped to show off her dress.
As she strode across the rear of the stage, met her date and moved towards the front, unbeknownst to her but clearly visible to me were a multitude of younger girls moving along with her. Some wore uniforms - a softball player, a dancer, a skater, a volleyball player - while one wore nothing but a diaper. There was a young flute player, an even younger piano player, a toddler taking her first steps, and a nervous teenager who was about to get her first (and nearly last) driving lesson. One rode a bike for the first time, one was carrying her American Girl doll, and I'm pretty sure one had a hunk of spaghetti noodle crammed up her nose.
There were more of them, of course, but just like each of their moments came and went too fast, so did her time on the stage. She was gone. The little ones, who were slightly faded while with her, had also left the stage, but not by walking - they simply floated into nothing, like a frosty winter's breath twisted sideways by a breeze. She's dancing now, as I write this, miles away and hopefully having the time of her life. But she's also already joined those little girls who arrived with her on stage tonight, her image stronger and clearer than the rest, some of whom were barely recognizable from the decay wrought by years stored in memory.
This night came too fast. I work and we play and they grow while I strive and all the while I lose track of the days that have come and gone. Until this day. On this day I know the toll of time, on this day I look back and reach for something I can't have - another day with the toddler, another day with the ball player, another day with the child who was nothing more than all I ever needed her to be: my daughter.
My little girls are gone. Where Daughter One walked tonight so too will Daughters Two and Three soon follow. I can't stop them, can't slow them down....heck, I can barely keep up with them most of the time. But I can love them, and I can be present for them. And I can make sure that, whenever a this day happens for any one of them, I will have her full parade of little girls ready to accompany her and welcome her into memory, where time can no longer touch her.
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