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Seeing Change

Miss W was one of J's first care-givers at the daycare center when we moved here over five years ago. Day care was still a new idea for J at the time as she had spend most of her time at home with my parents. Miss W made the transition easier than anything I had dared to hope to for and we became good friends. J and I have attended Buddhist prayer meetings with her, had her over to our place for dinner, been over to hers for lunch. She introduced me to Japanese food I would have never known to try on my own. Her warm smile and the sparkle in her eyes were her most attractive features and they made her more than just another pretty young woman.
J and I were ran into Miss W after nearly five years a few days ago. We were shopping at the same store. I kept looking at this woman with three kids in tow - she looked ever so familiar and yet I was not able to put a name to the face. When I finally connected it to W, I asked J to walk over and ask her if she was Miss W. And so she did and indeed it was Miss W who is now Mrs A. I recalled having met her husband back in the day when he was her boyfriend. She was just as happy to see J and I as I was to connect with her again.
The meeting left me wondering about the passage of time and the changes it brings to our lives. Mrs A is nothing like that wonderfully vibrant Miss W, I once knew. Three kids later, she looks completely worn out. "I won't have any more kids. Three is enough" she tells me in right after saying hello. I had trouble comprehending they were all her kids - the change was a little too dramatic to process.
From her vantage point, time would almost appear to have stood still for me. J is a third grader and I am five years older but other than that nothing has changed significantly about my life. Fleetingly, she may have wanted to return to that carefree time of being a young, free and in love without repsonsibilities. For a minute, I must admit I wished the winds of change had touched me too - even if not in the same way as it had touched W.

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Anonymous said…
3 kids in 5 years has to leave you worn out!
12:09 PM
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