What Days

I think back on my denials,

“No, no, I am not too young,” I protested, when I was cautioned by a wise elder before my marriage,

After all, I was 20.

I had been gainfully employed for four years, and felt as wise as the fabled Methuselah.

I had earned a salary, completed schooling and youth seemed not only ambivalent but unimportant.

Ah, history and life indeed soon taught me a lesson about that.

In the years that seemed to fly by, I quickly learned that

Youth is elastic, it rebounds when you share the joy of an engaged couple.

It resurrects at a wedding.

And it returns with a song that remembers a night of love.

It diminishes only when you are alone or afraid.

It disappears always and totally in the midst of fear of the unknown,

It is invisible when there is conflict,

And the passage of time is important only if it is wasted on things that can’t be undone or changed.

Age comes quickly when the rigidity of loss embraces your world, and

Age will remain forever if you forget the joy of love.

Age will embrace you with arms of steel if you allow the door to forgiveness to close,

But youth can and will be steadfast if you allow yourself to remember the joys of yesterday and understand

“The years teach much what the days never know.”