It’s The Eyes

My sophomore year of college, my roommate and I made a mix tape to fall asleep to.  We’d press “play,” climb up the ladder to our lofts and fall asleep to singers like Dave Matthews, Cowboy Junkies, and Sarah McLaughlin.

Natalie Merchant was among the artists we chose to lull us to sleep, and she sang a song that always haunted me a bit.  I think it’s called “My How You’ve Grown.”  She sings about the difficulty of being young “when patient was the hardest thing to be,” but she also laments when she’s looking at someone and saying goodbye to “the child you’ll never be again.”

This song was sad as a 20 year old; it’s downright devastating when I hear it as a mother.

Except Merchant seems to say that she still sees the child when she’s looking at the person before her who is now grown.  Perhaps there are still traces of the 3, 4, or 15 year old that once was.  I think that’s what I’ll choose to believe; that there will always be traces of the child left in all of us.

I think I saw traces of it Friday night.

I heard it in the loving familiarity of two sisters – one newly married and one just starting college – who hadn’t seen each other in awhile but easily spoke to one another as sisters do.

I saw it in the eyes of my brother’s carved pumpkin.  These are the same eyes he’s been drawing since he was probably four years old.  No matter what changes his pictures took, these eyes stayed the same.  They were put on fish, people, probably a few fruits and veggies too.

Maybe the reason the song is troubling is because even though we know childhood is over – or fleeting –  we can’t say goodbye to it.  Even though it’s over, it’s still something we carry around with us.

And in my experience, patience is always one of the hardest things to be.  No matter what your age.