When Did We Get to Be So Old?

“When Did We Get to Be So Old?”

I went to a funeral
The other day
For a man I knew as a boy.
‘Nigh forty years had passed
Since I’d seen him last.
When did we get to be so old?

They say he died bravely
And faced his end calmly.
He left a wife
And a daughter fourteen
Who spoke so eloquently
About missing his guidance.
I only knew the boy
Who at times needed guidance.
When did he get to be so old?

So I sat with the other
Old men I knew as boys
And pondered imponderables
And wondered
If we could have seen back then
The man that the boy became
Or in what we heard of his life
If somewhere in the man,
The boy was the same.

So we nodded and sighed,
Us boys who became men,
And agreed to meet once again
To catch up our time
And avoid being surprised
By another boy that got old.

I went home that night
And looked at my daughter
And I wondered,
If I could see the woman she’ll become?
Promising myself that I’ll know and not have to ask
When did she get to be so old.

eyk 1/10/10