Learning the value of time

This past week seems to have been all about time and how quickly that it passes. Time is always something that I seem to be short on. There are just never enough hours in the day and no matter how long the day can drag on some times there is still never enough time to get done what I need to accomplish. Balancing my time is just something that I have never been able to conquer and become an expert at.
But in the past few days I have realized that time in that capacity is the least of what I need to worry about. Instead I have had numerous occasions since last weekend to focus on how important time itself really is and that balancing time is not important but making the best of it is.
This week my son graduated 8th grade and became a freshman and my youngest daughter took the last step on the ladder that has led to her senior year in high school. It truly only seems like yesterday that I walked them into kindergarten holding their tiny hands and feeling their heartbeat through their palms as they were as nervous as me. While I smile at the thoughts of their accomplishments I couldn't help but wipe the tears from my eyes as my last child began his new journey and I sent my daughter on her way to have senior pictures made. Time has transported them at warp speed from the days of Polly Pockets and Thomas the Train to the steps of college preparation.
While the course of the end of the school year events has given me the opportunity to think about how fast the past years have flown by I have also experienced that feeling on more than one occasion of how time is taken for granted. On Tuesday night I received a call at 3 in the morning from a Sheriff's Deputy that literally stopped my heart as he began a conversation that led me to believe that my daughter had been hurt in a wreck or worse. Looking back at the conversation that took place, I know that the scariest moment of the phone call only lasted less than a minute - in that minute though I experienced a feeling of fear that I will never forget. In a span of that short time my mind was flooded with the thoughts of not ever seeing my daughter again and my heart was pleading with God for more time with her. I don't think that I have ever been so overcome with a fear so great that I physically lost all function of my body. In that fraction of time between when I thought the worst of what may have happened to my baby girl and hearing that she was okay it seemed like an eternity.
While the end result of the call was nothing like I had originally thought - it was that short time that I anticipated the worst that I will always keep in the back of my mind.
Today I called to check on a friend of mine that I have known for many years. She is one of the most precious women that I have ever been blessed to know. She has cancer and the days that she has are not many. I have had opportunity after opportunity to go visit with her, but with each intention to go see her came a reason that deprived me of that chance. Now only the immediate family is allowed to go see her and it breaks my heart that in the midst of all the insignificant things that I have been doing that kept me from seeing her, I feel so guilty that I never just took the time. I think back to the countless times she would ask me to come visit and how many times I said I will...I promise. I wish that I could just rewind the weeks and the months and relive that time with the perspective that I have now on the importance of spending time with someone you care about.
If I have learned anything this past week I have learned that time is something that I should have appreciated more than I have. The house and the car can be cleaned later, getting on Facebook can wait it's turn and going to Wal-Mart can be done when there is more free time in a day. But spending time with my children and my granddaughter, my loved ones and my friends are the things that are most important.
I can't turn back the clock to spend more time listening to my children's stories or sitting on the porch drinking coffee with an old friend. If I could have a do over that's what it would be. If only time were in a bottle I would know how much has passed and how much time is left. I have been blessed with all the years of being with my children and having precious friends and family and I know now I should have taken advantage of that time instead of taking it for granted.