The Last Time

I was driving home from Tyler yesterday, I don't remember what triggered this thought, but suddenly, there it was..."When was the last time I held Whitney?" Whitney is our 18 year old, soon to be High School graduate. Of course we still hug, kiss and tell her we love her. What I was thinking of was how our small children would crawl onto our lap and just hold us, snuggle and sometimes fall asleep while holding onto us. Then it dawned on me that with all of our children, we never know that last time that we actually get to enjoy that kind of 'holding'. It's not like we sit down, realizing how fast they are growing up and say to them 'come sit on my lap for the last time'. What happens is we get to a day like I did, enjoying something that with multiple young children at home I wondered if I would ever get again...time alone...and it hits us; that time alone has only come after a process of 'last times'...the last time they grin and toddle toward us, the last time they crawl into our bed in the early morning, the last time they ask us to 'hold me', the last story read, tooth under the pillow, excited smiles on Christmas morning, and the very last time they crawl onto our lap and hold us in the way only a trusting child can. I don't know when those last times happened, I just know they did. I am thankful for the man and women my children have become/are becoming and I love this stage of our lives also...and I appreciate every time I hear one of my grandchildren say, "hold me", because I know, it won't be long....