ONLY AFTER one has gazed into the eyes of babies do you realize the future (which many may view as uncertain) is already here. Innocent as they are, their mere being is enough to already appear like that proverbial foot in the door to our present. Oftentimes, I wonder if this is also how those who work daily with babies and little children view these younglings.
For all we know, as the wonderment of such may have already rubbed as a tad routine for some pediatricians, doctors, and educators alike, this might not seem like one eureka moment anymore.
This is why I reckon that one of life’s most profound blessings is having to watch the parade of babies in one’s family. Only second is witnessing how they slowly grow up and mature through the years, to gradually fill in those blanks and uncertainties many define as the bleak future.
Clearly, I am now a witness to what my departed parents may have seen and almost childishly gawked at before. Happily, too, I feel fortunate enough to be discovering this wondrous parade before me. In a magical way, it is as if I am reliving and witnessing it through their eyes.
Aside from its religious theme, last Easter Sunday’s celebrations in both our clans (one in GenSan and the other here in Davao) helped me arrive at this realization.
Surely, it must have only been four or five years ago when those once tiny rugrats were yet comfortably-snug in the protecting wings of their nanas and doting mums. Now, with some of them already wildly running about and others have grown into more independent individuals, the speed by which time has gone has clearly become more evident and plain as day.
While we, the adults, might have likewise grown and significantly aged during those years along with them, it is often quite ironic that our perspective of them has remained somewhat fixed and stagnant at times. In our mind’s eye, we still perceive them as tiny children.
In the end, poignant realization or not, all these will eventually have been for naught. Then quite sadly, as the years ramble on and turn to decades, what may have all transpired will slowly matter little, especially for those we cherish as cherubs.
The plain truth is, while they forge ahead to meet their future and what they intend to make of it, they’d have already laid all these behind them. When the time comes to have children of their own, perhaps they will likewise realize that the future has arrived, like a foot in the door of their own present time. Only by then, the circle would have finally been complete and thus, still remain unbroken.
