A Homecoming Of Sorts

The Rolling Stones once said that time is on my side. And the Grateful Dead made note, many years ago, of “what a long strange trip it’s been”. And somewhere in between the two reside my thoughts of the past few days.

It’s been a recurrent theme recently, that thing called “the passage of time”. Two distinct conversations this week brought this back to me in full, living color. And some very fond memories along with them.

In the first, I had made a comment about how quickly the year 2010 was passing. Suddenly, I was thinking back to my younger days, telling my mother that it seemed like everything went by so slowly, that it was such a long time between birthdays. She told me that as I got older, time would go by faster and faster every day. I remember thinking that hey, she’s just an adult, what does she know? Of course, that’s the mindset when you’re younger. And now, I realize how prophetic her statement was. Suddenly, you turn around and another year is gone. Then five more. Then another decade.

In the second, as I was teaching a class on clinical reasoning this week, I made the remark that it’s been 22 years since I graduated from Queen’s University. It seems like it was yesterday – though the calendar would remind me that it’s been 22 years ago last month.

The still photo snapshot in my mind that is graduation suddenly fast forwards to a couple of years ago when I found myself celebrating my 20 year university reunion. Ah that wonderful time machine that lives inside our minds …

At Queen's University, we call it Homecoming, or Alumni Weekend. Every year, they welcome home the alumni. It goes in five year cycles. You come back for a 5, 10, 15, 20 ... year reunion. Queen's is, to say the least, a very proud institution. It is one of the top universities in Canada year in and year out, and from day one, you are proud to be there. It has a long history. It's been around since 1841 – a full 26 years before the founding of Canada.

At halftime of the Alumni Weekend football game, you receive a bit of an honor. You get to parade around the football field with your classmates. They group everyone into decades - graduates of the 70s, 80s, 90s ... and even further back than that. I think there were some people that returned for their 50th college reunion. I hope I am alive to experience mine!

After the game, I joined my classmates for dinner. I hadn’t seen or heard from most of them in one to two decades. Nonetheless, you still have some history with these people - be it good, bad, or indifferent. What was amusing to me was that not much had changed with many of them. Sure, they have kids and homes, clinical practices and such. But as a group, they all noted that I had changed the most since university. I guess nobody expected that I would be a writer, or for that matter a teacher. Perhaps even I didn’t fully realize it at the time!

The good thing about something like a 20 year reunion is that it gives you some perspective on life. The "20 year" part didn’t faze me at all. And in the Reader's Digest abridged version that you share at reunions, you pull out the highlights and realize that a lot of life has been lived. Good life. Good living. And you can step back and appreciate these people in a completely different way. Time does wonders, and as they say, time heals. It was a treat to see them again. If nothing else, that would be worth the price of admission alone.

There are times when you take a peek in the rear view mirror. And when you do take that fleeting moment to look back, you realize how much water that has flowed under so many bridges in life. Fortunately for me, for a few brief moments this week, during a couple of serendipitous conversations, I was reminded of some simple things. On the surface, I was reminded of the passage of time. But underlying all of that is the beauty of the journey of life, and how thankful and grateful I am for all that I have seen, done, experienced, witnessed, and reflected upon.

And for a moment I could see myself, sitting there in class, so many years ago, just as the journey was really grabbing hold of me. And I smiled.

Photo credit: John Vetterli