A Journey in Time 

 

           2012

 

If you could meet the person you were forty years ago,

what would you say to that person?

 

 

Prologue  

 

The year is 1970.

I’m seventeen, at home with my mother in the kitchen. We are engaged in a quiet conversation—discussing life, and the learning of lessons along the way. Mom is at the sink, in an unusually reflective mood, gazing out the window.

 

    At seventeen, my adolescent world is relatively small, my teenage perspective limited.

    Mom, on the other hand, has experienced much more than I, including the Great Depression and World War II. Her adult world is a great mystery to me, and her frame of reference, as a grownup, is far different from mine.
    So I am all at once intrigued, and the tone of the conversation shifts abruptly, when my mother softly exclaims, “If I only knew then what I know now!” 
    It's a rare moment, and an unusual opportunity. It's as though the door to adulthood is creaking open, and I'm about to get a peek.

 

    What does Mom know now, that she wishes she knew before? 
    What lessons have been learned?  What wisdom acquired? 
    What special knowledge has been gained, and what unique insights realized, in the mysterious world that she, Dad, and their peers live in, called adulthood?
    I am all ears—raptly attentive and eager for answers.

 

    I learn no secrets, however.
    Although I press—“What is it you know, Mom? Tell me!”—Mom finds herself unexpectedly at a loss for words.
    The moment passes.
    The conversation winds down. 
    And the door creaks shut.

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            Part 1.

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