YOU DON'T KNOW HOW FAST TIME GOES UNTIL YOU GET THERE

The line by Robert De Niro, Jr., who played Frank in the 2019 American epic crime film The Irishman, directed and produced by Martin Scorsese, ”You don’t know how fast time goes until you get there,” immediately had me think of my mother-in-law. She would often say, “The older you get, the faster time goes.” I think that the older you get the slower you move, so there isn’t enough time in a day to accomplish all that you set out to do.

I recently saw a post on Facebook, noting that it has been 20 years since the start of the new millennium. The posting was referring to the year 2000 as the new millennium, which argumentatively started on January 1, 2001, but…what’s one year? Anyhow, I quickly turned to my husband to discuss the calls we made that day for, at my suggestion, we marked the occasion by calling our few living uncles. That fond memory allowed us to picture our now deceased uncles by recalling bits of our discussions with them.

What spirals through my mind, however, after seeing the recent release of The Irishman, depicting the notorious Teamsters Union leader Jimmy Hoffa, portrayed by Al Pacino, is speaking with my father-in-law’s brother Harold. Back in February 1993, my husband and I had just come from seeing Hoffa when we called Uncle Harold. We were interested in his take on the movie, as he was a member of the Teamsters Union.

Having worked in sanitation in New Jersey, our fearless uncle, who earned the Purple Heart in the U.S. Army during WWII, courageously mustered up the strength to briefly, yet pleasingly, discuss the film with us. That was even though it turned out to be the night before his passing.

My husband and I both grew up with many biological uncles; by the year 2000, fewer than a handful were still alive. As a matter-of-fact, only two others remained living on my husband’s paternal side along with two of my maternal uncles. It just so happened, though, that they were not only our uncles whom we knew and loved; they were American heroes.

All of the uncles we had the privilege to speak with on January 1, 2000, were military veterans of WWII. In total, ten of our biological uncles served in WWII. We even had one biological uncle each who was in the military during WWI. That’s 100 years of family history.

The memories of speaking with our surviving uncles, one after another, on that monumental day marking the 2000s, makes twenty years seem as though they went by “just like that.” On the other hand, thinking more deeply about our calls on that auspicious day, it feels as though time has stood still.

I leave you with the words of Steve Miller Band – Fly Like An Eagle Lyrics, “Time Keeps on Slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future…” Make the most of your time. Make those calls, send those letters, find the minutes for those visits. Scour the time to create fond memories.

~HAPPY 2020~

THANK A VETERAN