A Handful of Time

Every so often I think about scooping it up by the handful and safely stashing it away, this mysterious thing called time.  It's a treasure, unappreciated and undervalued until it's a memory in the rear view mirror, dusty with age, a little distorted and fading fast.

Spend it wisely, my daddy used to say about time and money.

Until we parted ways, I had always been a daddy's girl.  He taught me to play piano and ride a bike, helped me with my homework, made the rounds with me when it was Girl Scout Cookie time, taught me a lifelong habit of books - especially satire - and gently helped me to think through crossword puzzles.  We shared a common love of language and music, a frustrating contempt for cold weather and all things mathematical, and we both thought horses were the smartest animals alive.  We had the same phobic fear of things that crawled on their bellies. We were both fascinated by history and politics and had no use for the next door neighbors.  He showed me how to water down alcohol - except for his beloved Chivas, which he treated with respect bordering on reverence - and I learned how to make one drink last a whole evening.  We made snow angels on the front lawn in winter and played badminton on the green grass in the spring.  The dead, he told me over and over again, were just shells, remnants of those who had once been.  I learned I had nothing to fear from them but even so we didn't talk about our own mortality.

And like those handfuls of time, we kept a great many secrets locked away, routinely conspiring to keep my mother in the dark about things she wouldn't have approved of - certain friends, a little supplemental allowance, the after-church visits to the drive through ice cream place - and later, after I'd been married for a few years, even his ladyfriend, a pretty young widow he used to bring to our tiny apartment to play bridge. She was well mannered and well kept company and she made him laugh but my heart absolutely froze at the thought of the risk they were taking.  She eventually moved to a small town in Maine and the affair died a natural death but I still remember the feelings I had and how utterly strange and surreal it was to be an accomplice in his adultery.

After some thirty years of these small - and not so small - conspiracies, my mother became terminally ill and everything changed.  My adulterous, secret-keeping and always-on-my-side daddy changed, insisting that I put aside my feelings and reconcile with her.

Spend it wisely, I remembered him saying about time and money and I said no.  Besides offering a half hearted apology, it was the last thing I ever said to him.  It made me sad - and angry - for a very long time but I never regretted it.  I let that particular handful of time slip right through my fingers and given the chance, would do it all over again.  

Money, like time, can only be spent once.