Time went by slowly for many years as I was busy living life, and then one morning I woke up, and I was forty. My coworkers gave me a birthday party at work. It didn't seem so bad, but I had to get reading glasses. I still had children at home, and having a lot to do put the passage of time in a state of irrelevancy.

Days, weeks and years passed by almost unnoticed and then one morning I woke up, and I was fifty. My coworkers gave me another birthday party at work. It didn't seem so bad, but I was beginning to have some health problems. I still had one child at home in college, and having a lot to do put the passage of time in a state of irrelevancy.

Somewhere during the next ten years, time seemed to speed up. My health problems steadily increased, and I began to be aware of the passage of weeks, months and years for the first time in my life. The days and weeks flew by swiftly, almost as if they were a river flowing at a rapid pace over rocks into rapids and then the great, white water falls. I awoke abruptly at the age of sixty. It did not feel as if it weren't so bad. I tried not to think about the significance of it. My husband took me out to dinner, and with a birthday gift from him purchased a new car. I received flowers from my now grown children. Many birthday cards and several presents were received, and I tried to look on the bright side of the situation. However, I knew that one morning I would awake, if luck was with me, and I would be seventy. Seventy, surely that couldn't happen to me. I looked in the mirror, and this lady looking back at me didn't seem real. Where was the person in the photograph album? The slim, young girl with the dark brown hair and the youthful glow wasn't the person looking back from the mirror at me. Again, it didn't seem real. I looked at the picture albums, and turning the pages I saw a cycle that was very real. There was a picture of me in high school with my young looking Dad beside me. Oh, there I am in my high school graduation gown. Look, a picture of me in my wedding dress with my best friend and maid of honor standing beside me. Here I am with my oldest child, now thirty-seven, on her first birthday. I turn the pages and see my youngest daughter, now thirty-one, on the day we brought her home from the hospital. On another page, a picture of her graduating from the university, her first apartment and many pages as her life unfolded over the years. Wait, my Dad's obituary and a picture of my Mom's grave, and yet another obituary of my Aunt and Uncle. A picture of my Grandmother and Grandfather on their wedding day, a much older picture of them on my wedding day. Herein lies the truth, pages of photographs depicting the full circle of life, and then comes death. It is an inevitable fact, but the mystery is in the passage of time. How does one go from birth to death in a series of events both good and bad that ultimately leads to a permanent sleep? One day, you will not awake to be any age. You will pass from death into another life.

As I walk down the halls of the nursing home, I see aged faces that were once young and vibrant. They tell of lives that have sped along at break neck speed; and then all of a sudden, stop in a wheel chair along the corridor of a nursing home. Where did their time go? How did this happen? Did they wake up one morning to find that they were eighty, ninety or one hundred? Did they look in the mirror and see an unfamiliar face looking back at them? Or, did they even remember the person they once were?

I used to enjoy listening to a song called, "September Song." I never really thought about the words until now. I'm not sure if I want to listen to the song any more, perhaps not.

"Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December. But the days grow short when you reach September. When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame, One hasn't got time for the waiting game. Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few, September, November. And these few precious days, I'll spend with you. These precious days I'll spend with you."

September marks my fortieth wedding anniversary. And these few precious days that I have left, I'll spend with you. Yes, one day I will awake to be another age, and one day I will awake into another age. The story of life goes on from its beginning to its final end for every human being on the planet earth. It is a "September Song."