It occurred to me today that I am noticing a pattern.

At my house, whenever someone asks a question or makes an observation about the way that life works, or the way that things tend to come around in succession, something like that, I will always deeply inhale and then sing, at the top of my lungs, the chorus from the theme to The Lion King…

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE. AND IT MOVES US ALL. THROUGH DESPAIR AND HOPE. THROUGH FAITH AND LOVE.

You get the idea.

My kids always roll their eyes when I do this. Jennie gets that ‘your dad’s a goofball’ look on her face.

Life has a bit of a pattern to it, if you are paying attention. As a matter of fact, there are probably many different series of patterns that exist, just waiting for us to discover them, and I think that I have been blessed by God with the ability to see some of these, from time to time.

The next time you watch the movie (The Lion King), pay close attention to the opening scene and the closing scene. If you’ve done this already, then you know what I’m talking about –> at the beginning of the movie, Simba is being raised high into the air by his father, Mufasa. Then, the final scene involves Simba, similarly raising his son high into the air.

We are born. We grow up. We are raised by parents, and then we become parents, and then our children become parents. We see our parents as ‘parents’ when we are children, then we grow up and get to the point where we can see our parents as ‘fellows’, as we parent our own children and we realize that we get a chance at doing with our children what our parents did as they raised us.

* * *

I am at the beginning of my nineteenth year of being a public school teacher, and this has been, as the years have gone by, another opportunity for me to marvel at the patterns that exist. Especially recently, I’ve had some of my favorite coworkers move on to their retirement, and I’ve been left with fewer and fewer coworkers that I can look to and say, “They were working here when I first started.” In fact, I guess I am starting to be the guy that people are looking at and thinking, “Man, that guy’s been here a long time.”

As sad as it has been for me to have these friends, near and dear to my heart, moving on to their retirement, I am happy for them, happy that they’ve been able to make it to the goal.

As a matter of fact, I am now starting to get to that place, as an educator, where I am teaching the children of students that I taught at the very beginning of my career. If that doesn’t make you feel old, I don’t know what will.

For as many years as my workplace –my school district– existed in advance of me showing up for my first day of work, and for as many years as I hope that it will continue on after I’ve said my fond farewells, I guess that’s the way that it goes. We all have those places where we show our faces for a period of time, and afterward we move on.

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. Hee hee.

* * *

We became a three-car family last month, with the addition of Eleanor to our ‘garage’. Eleanor is a Buick SUV that we bought for my wife, so I could get her hand-me-down vehicle, and the kids could get mine. In the weeks and days leading up to the decision to get a third vehicle, my wife and I both tried to think back to our younger days, when we were starting to drive, and what our parents did about securing a vehicle for their kids (us). Then, having that example from our past, we were free to follow the example, or discard it, to pursue some other course.

We’ve taken this approach many times, as we’ve been navigating as a family for the past sixteen-plus years. Looking back to how it used to be done is often a great starting point for trying to get a look at some of our options, as we make decisions about charting a course for our family. As often as we’ve decided to try to do things in a similar fashion to how our parents did things when we were young, we’ve probably just as often decided to do things differently, since we’re different people with different circumstances.

Without fail, and regardless of which way we’ve decided to go in different situations, I’ve always felt impressed by the circular nature of the human experience.

Kids, raised by parents, grow up to be parents, raising kids, and then become grandparents, watching their kids raising kids.

* * *

In the opening section, I referenced the theme from The Lion King. And, as often as I’ve thought of the patterns as circular, I’m thinking at this particular moment of a very, very long line. My part of this line starts at the point on the line right around AD1975. My dad’s part of the line starts right around AD1949. For twenty-six plus years, my dad’s line didn’t have my line running next to it, but for the last almost forty-five years, those lines have been concurrent.

My wife’s part of the line starts a few years after mine starts, on AD1978, but significant portions of those two lines –hers and mine– are right next to each other.

My son’s line starts at AD2004, and my twin daughters got their start a few years after that, give or take.

I’ve got friends whose lines, next to mine, may have started before mine, or after mine.

My point in closing this post with this illustration is this: we are on a journey, each of us, and during that journey, we come in contact with others who are also on journeys of their own. We journey together with other people, sometimes for large parts of our (or their) journey, and sometimes we only journey with these others for a short while.

The length of time that we get to spend with our fellows on these journeys seems to be governed by circumstances beyond our control, and we are usually poorly prepared to give up on the time that we got to spend with these others.

Spend some time reflecting on the people that you’ve been blessed to share the journey with. Think about how they’ve been able to offer instruction and information to you. Hopefully, you’ve also been able to help people on their path by being an example for them to follow.

Finally, stop taking for granted those moments that you get to spend with them. We are sojourners, each of us.