Whatever happened to those kids?

I looked in the mirror the other day and I saw a strange old man with white sideburns looking back at me. I asked this old man what had happened to the young boy that used to look back at me. The old man said nothing. I asked my wife what happened to those kids that used to live here. She told me to sit down and have my breakfast.

I ate quietly and thought I must find these kids that were so happy and full of life that I once knew. What could've made them go away. Had I done something to make them unhappy? I walked by the playground that is next to the junior high school that they both went to and I could almost hear the kids laughing and playing on the playground and in the schoolyard. What happened to all the houses, they were all gone, not a one was still there.

The trees were still there, even the old tulip poplar tree that bent in the wind of the many thunderstorms we used to have was still standing where it stood when my house was still there. I looked down the street to see if I could find my friend’s houses but alas they were all gone too. The roar of a jet aircraft overhead from people coming and going to our airport was still there.

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What happened to all the kids in this neighborhood that I used to play with? Where had they gone, had something come and picked them up and moved them all away? What could cause this kind of devastation and leave me here all alone in my memories and thoughts of times gone by?

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I could tell you where all those kids went that used to play in the street, play softball at the park or go to that junior high school to learn, I could have told you, but it just seems, that those kids are so far away now, it is hard to see their shining faces looking back at me. Why did they go away and will they ever come back, is this the way it has to be.

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My wife filled my cup of coffee and awakened me from my thought and she told me that those kids had all grown old just like us. It makes me wonder if she doesn't understand that I seem to be the only one that has grown old because when these old man's eyes gaze upon her he sees the lovely young girl that walked down the aisle and took him as her husband so many years ago. Surely she can see how puzzled I am looking back at her because she hasn't aged a day to me.

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