Making Time Our Friend

​"Time me running the bases, dad," he begged.

Time.

It can be such a game.

I hit start on the watch. He ran around those bases, fully aware the seconds were ticking away. Trust me, dad was watching those seconds, too.

He stood there. Suddenly back in front of me. Staring. Too young and anxious to know the answer to know how out of breath he was.

"How fast, dad?"

I don't remember how fast. But I know I told him he'd just ran the bases faster than any human ever had. You're now a world record holder, buddy.

That's the fun age. The age when dad gets to invite time to play a part in the fun. And when time is humble enough to allow dad his superhero moment. When time lets a superhero dad make his kid feel like a superhero.

Yet, sometimes time doesn't play along. Sometimes time doesn't tell you the rules of the game.

Time did not tell me the clock would keep running as he ran around those bases, and then one day around a high school track, until he finally slows just enough to march up on a graduation stage.

A stage where it will suddenly feel like time is now the superhero.

I could be mad at time, I suppose. But isn't it time that is giving me this moment right now? This image time stamped in me from well over a decade ago. To recall with sweet clarity. To the point of inhaling once again the dust in his tracks. To be overwhelmed again by the joy of a tiny world record holder.

It's time traveling, like only a superhero dad could do.

Time steals, I think. But maybe in some way time feels bad about that - because time always seems to find a way to give back what it has taken.

Give back, that is, if we are willing to humbly let time play the role of the superhero from time to time. If we are willing to treat time as our friend and not our enemy.

So, Saturday will come. And Elliott will touch another base in this game time has been playing with me. And although I still don't know all of the rules of this game, I am forever grateful for my friendship with time.