Today I would like to just let my thoughts wander and chat a little about growing up. This month I am turning 25 (which just so happens to also be my golden birthday), an age that I have forever thought of as the turning point from young adult to adult’s adult. Like responsible adult. Get your own phone plan adult. Be independent adult. I no longer need to talk to my parents every week kind of adult. Well, I think you get the idea. And as I am getting closer to this age, day by day I realize that I am by no means ready to be an adult’s adult. And I think that it’s okay… to a point…to still be contingent on your own childlike tendency’s to depend on your parent’s love.
Last month my Grandpa was admitted to the hospital for a handful of different reasons. Now let me tell you a bit about my Grandpa. He is just so special to me. His birthday is just 3 days before mine and out of the 24 (going on 25) years I have lived on this Earth, we have celebrated our birthdays together 23 times. It is a tradition that I hold dear to my heart as we age together, though separate.
This year he turns 81. And as of right now it looks like he is going to make it to yet another birthday. But while he was in the hospital our family experienced an emotional awakening, something that we have not experienced before. The possible loss of a person we all love so sincerely. Now I am sure that most of you have experiences death in your own families, and yes I have too, but this was a little different, this was the first familiarity of death in regards to someone who has truly changed my life. Through many prayers from myself and others and through the expertise of the doctors who worked with him, he is home resting. But none the less, this was close, and it was a very real emotional drain on my heart.
A little while after he was released to go home, I went to go visit my dad at his house about 40 minutes from where I live. As we were sitting on the couch silently watching some t.v. he says to me, “I know that he is only getting older, and that we have been expecting this for a while, but it still is a strange feeling to know that the man who raised me is going to be leaving soon.”
I honestly didn’t know what to say. Here is my father, a man just short of 50 years himself, and yet he too seemed as childlike as me, sitting together in the living room. I began to think about the time when I too would be saying those words to my own children, about him.
My sister is just a year older, and in this past year she has gotten married and had her first child. My younger brothers are much taller than me, and I even have friends here in Provo the same age as the two of them. We are all adults. So here I am, aging along with everyone else. Just separately.
Now I don’t mean for this post to have a morbid undertone, or a depressed sort of feel. I really just want to talk about the relationships we all have with one another and how when times come for us to have to say goodbye we reflect on the times we shared together.
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| Grandpa, my Dad, and brother Dave. Three generations of Sutterfield. |
The world is turning green, and blue, and bright again, and the snow is melting to new life. Memories are to be made this summer with those we love. This world has so much laughter to find and embraces to share. I feel so lucky to be in a place that I find so easy to love those around me, and the blessing it is to have them love me back. It makes growing up a little easier, and even a little more fun. There will be a time when I will no longer walk this earth, but I hope that through my interactions with others that part of me will be passed down through them until we all will be reunited again.
Thank you for letting me just express some feeling about this life, I am sorry if it bored you, or if it was a little too heavy. But it was nice to get it out in the world.
Love you bunches and oats,
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