Irrelevant

I don’t say it much this time of year, but as I tossed the ball around the yard for Ollie on Sunday morning, one word came to mind:

Beautiful.

The snow was lightly falling.

We heard the PA system from the Bills Stadium as they announced something or other.

Then the voices of children. 

They were laughing.

And that’s what took me back.

I visualized the back yard with the sandbox and swing set.

Thought about the boys playing tennis ball baseball back there.

I could almost hear their laughter.

And I thought about a line we heard in a movie we’d just seen.

“The payoff for being a great parent is that you become irrelevant in their lives.”

We aren’t there yet, and that’s sort of depressing, but it is true.

They don’t need us like they needed us 10 or 15 or 20 years ago.

But it was peaceful.

I thought about the day, I moved a truckload of dirt to set up that swing set.

Took me hours, and Kathy opened the window and asked:

“What are we doing for dinner? The boys are hungry. I can make you a grilled cheese.”

Six hours of moving dirt and I earned a grilled cheese.

We’ve almost made it to irrelevance.

“Sam is a little short this week,” Kathy mentioned a couple of weeks ago. 

Not totally irrelevant yet.

But one of life’s cruelest tricks is that we don’t get to go back and hang with them when they were children.

Yet.

I guess we can do that.

Light snow falling. Wind blowing. Ball at my feet.

Mind drifting.

Five.

Ten.

Twenty years ago.

When we were truly relevant.