Time is moving at the speed of light.
It’s as if the older we get and the more time we’ve used up, the faster the sand falls.
People die. Places close. Things end. We mourn so much in the course of a lifetime. And we become so very grateful for those special moments that formed or forever changed us, seconds when time got loud and we realized “this, right here, matters.”
I would give anything to revisit the late people, places and moments that came to define who I am.
If I could go back in time, I’d …
- Reprise our annual Christmas Eve Trivial Pursuit tournament, and watch the elders get cut-throat.
- Dance with abandon all night at Erik the Red nightclub.
- Watch my mom and my aunt jump from their seats at Chubby Checker’s urging to “twist again like we did last summer.”
- Toss a toy with my late terrier, Handsome Ted.
- Sift through my mom’s record collection and stack Tony Bennett, Gary Puckett and The Supremes on her hi-fi system.
- Fight my siblings for a spot in the way back of the wood-paneled station wagon.
- Have something, anything, gifted wrapped at Marshall Field’s.
- Take my parents to the House of Hughes at Christmas time.
- Have dinner while watching “Phantom of the Opera” at The Candlelight Theater in the round.
- All skate, all skate at the Oak Lawn Roller Rink.
- Do a cartwheel — better yet, a walkover – in the basement gym of tumbling teacher Mr. Rossano’s South Side bungalow.
- Lose the day sifting through albums at Tempo Records on 95th Street.
- Drink a 7-Up on the steps of my grandmother’s house in Pilsen.
- Eat a cream horn at the kitchen table of my Nana’s house in Chicago Ridge.
- Ride the Mad Mouse at Playland in what is now Justice.
- Hear my Richards High School English teacher, Mrs. Ridderhoff, say, “You should be a writer.”
- See my driver’s ed teacher, a burly football coach, snarl at me when I got behind the wheel for the first time because I couldn’t understand how the hands and the feet could work simultaneously at different tasks, and say, “Stop thinking and drive.”
- Have my dad drop me off at Illinois State University for the first time and leave me feeling so alone and so alive.
- Walk with my fellow dorm mates to the all-night doughnut shop during midnight study sessions for finals.
- Tear up during college graduation because I would probably never see most of these people again.
- Land my first big newspaper job and then rush to the ladies’ room to throw up or pass out.
- Hang and chat with photographers after a long reporting assignment.
- Drive home before dawn after covering an overnight shift in the trauma center for a story.
- Finish a magazine piece so completely I don’t even need affirmation from the editor.
- Watch the massive newspaper presses roll.
- Write, and write well, on deadline on my phone on a snow-packed porch while shaking uncontrollably.
- Get that first passport.
- Survive that first overnight flight.
- See the Statue of Liberty from the air for the first time.
- Realize high school Spanish class actually translates while traveling in Spain.
- Board a ferry to Africa, feeling like a stranger in a strange land, only to find onboard lots of other Americans, including one of my husband’s coworkers.
- See Tom Petty in concert at Wrigley Field.
- Watch the Cubs win the World Series while losing my mind and almost my dinner.
- Stop and chat at the tables of all of the people who came to our wedding but have since passed on.
- Meet my husband for the first time and, even though he didn’t talk enough and I talked way too much, realize there’s magic here.
- Watch a nurse hand me a dark-haired newborn sporting a red bow and wonder how this little bundle of life could belong to me.
- See my youngest, at the tender age of 2, standing at the edge of our sofa, reenacting Rafiki’s announcement of Simba’s birth.
- Watch my 4-year-old use an arsenal of barrettes and bows to style my husband’s hair. And watch him beam all the while.
- Watch my oldest, at the very mature age of 6, run along the beach in Naples, Florida, shouting to visitors to leave the starfish alone. “They’re not souvenirs.”
- Applaud my youngest as she graduates from nursing school, knowing how challenging it had been and knowing how much my mother would have loved this moment.
- Welcome each and every grandchild and swoon the first time they call me “Onna.”
- Accompany two of those grandchildren to the Children’s Farm in Palos Park to choose a pumpkin now that the world has reopened.
- Be amazed as my oldest deftly handles her grandfather’s health crisis in my absence, and realize my mission to raise competent, capable, confident women is complete.
- Wonder as I cross the stage to graduate high school if a working-class girl from the south suburbs, with little money and big dreams, could actually get a college degree and maybe do something.
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at donnavickroy4@gmail.com.
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