By Pattie Mihalik

newsgirl@comcast.net

My how the time goes by.

My high school class is getting ready for yet another reunion, and I’ve been getting emails encouraging me to attend.

The reunion is being called “The Last Hurrah.”

That threw me for a loop.

What does “the last hurrah” mean in this case?

It sounds like our class will never have another reunion, despite the fact that our active alumni organization holds a big get-together every year.

Or does the last hurrah title mean we’re at the age when another hurrah won’t come our way?

We all know we’re not guaranteed tomorrow. I could write this column today then leave this earth before the column is published.

None of us know when our final hour will be here.

But I’ll tell you this: While this life is mine to enjoy, I’m not going to focus on a last hurrah. I’m going to celebrate every single day in every way I can.

That reunion invitation has made me think about the passing of time and how each decade of our life slips by way too quickly.

In the process we become something we never thought we would be: older. Then old. Some day, it will change to really old, if we’re lucky enough to live that long.

When we were high school seniors I’m sure there wasn’t one classmate who thought some day he or she would be a senior citizen. We couldn’t visualize getting as old as our grandparents.

No, our thoughts were only of the present.

While we were in high school I bet none of us felt the passage of time. What we felt was the need to prepare for the present, meaning finding the right college or the right job.

Back then, we had no idea how quickly time passes.

I have a treasured young friend who is now enjoying her senior year of high school. I felt so good reading her Facebook page where she said she was going to make the most of her senior year because she “would never again have that chance.”

I love the way Kali is so introspective and the way she can refocus her energy when she needs to. I hope she embraces every stage of life, just as she is embracing her last year of high school.

When I am in the supermarket and I see parents with babies or very young children, I am always drawn to smile at them. Just seeing little ones makes me happy.

When I look at their parents who might be struggling to buy groceries while holding onto a child, I always wonder the same thing: Do they know how lucky they are?

While raising children is time consuming, often exhausting and plagued with one little problem after another, it is also the most precious time of life.

When you’re living through those years it’s easy to forget how precious and how fleeting that time of life really is.

I was aware of that every single day when I was blessed to have small children. As an adult who went to college later than most students, I remember writing a college essay about knowing I needed to relish every moment of my children’s childhood.

I wrote about leaving the dishes in the sink if a daughter tugged on my pants and said, “Come see the chipmunk in the yard.” I knew those moments would be gone too soon.

When I read my essay to the class, they smiled and said it was “sweet.” But I doubt that they could relate.

Here’s a question I often ponder: If we truly knew and understood how extremely short life is, would we live it differently?

When the baby is crying all night, would we be grateful to be able to hold and comfort that infant? Or would we long for the days when the baby was older and would sleep through the night?

Would we realize that baby would become a toddler, then a teenager all too soon?

In other words, while you’re waiting for one stage of life to pass, life is slipping away.

When Andy and I were married, he gave me a watch with a Latin inscription on the back. The translation was: “Time flies. Be aware of the moment.”

I have always taken that message to heart. When I reach a new stage of life, I have always embraced it, knowing it will be mine only temporarily.

Sometimes I don’t like thinking like that. When I am basking in idyllic days I don’t like thinking they will end someday, so I try to push that thought to the back of my mind.

Yet, nothing stops the relentless advance of time.

We can’t stop time, but we can do something else of a positive nature. We can embrace every day of life, consciously squeezing every bit of joy out of it.

And we can work hard not to let any pressure, any problem or any anxiety rob us of our present joy.

I sometimes find myself worrying about something that “might” happen in the future. When I catch myself falling into that trap, I concentrate on the present, appreciating the moment at hand instead of worrying about what’s coming next.

If we put all our thoughts into the present moment, the last hurrah will take care of itself.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.