Throughout the span of my life, my parents have not aged. In my mental snapshot, they are frozen in time somewhere in their forties. Pictures I have formerly examined of their younger years seem to belong to someone else, not to them. Subconsciously, I picture them emerging into this world in possession of much the same mental maturity and physique that they each maintain currently.
An unexpected trip to Columbus this weekend changed that perspective. Saturday evening, sitting in the darkened family room, we looked at slides of a motorcycle trip my Dad had taken over 30 years ago. For the first time, I saw my Dad as he had been during his 20s: little bit crazy, a little bit creative, and extremely adventurous. He rode his BMW bike across the country and down into south America. There were pictures of him camped out in barns, on beaches, in cow pastures, in mountains, in the redwood forest, in the rain forest. Seeing my conservative, hard-working father as a hippie living on the open road was new to me. Shockingly, my parents had actually had lives before I was born!
For the first time, it hit home that the roles that we play in life are always changing: one day a son, the next a father; one day a father, the next a grandfather. And God, the director, always constant.
