Following our Northeast pilgrimage, my wife and I took some vacation time and headed south, where our UK family reside. After settling into our airbnb home, we arranged to meet my eldest son and his two daughters at St. Ann’s Well Gardens in Hove.

It was a place I knew well, as my first wife and I lived nearby when our children were young, and it is where we used to take our dog Bess for a walk. The park slopes gradually from east to west. There are trees lining one side and also scattered throughout the park. There are gray squirrels too; I remember my youngest son approaching one when he was small; the squirrel trustingly allowed him to come close. 

At the east end of the park there is a playground, which used to have two slides - one long and one short - to satisfy both the adventurous and the timid child. When I returned this month, the long slide - the “scary one”, according to my son - had gone, to be replaced by something gentler. The small slide had disappeared entirely. 

One enduring feature of the park was the flying fox, a zip line strung between two poles on which one can glide from one end to another. It was as popular as ever. What could be more exhilarating than flying through the air while holding on for dear life? At four years old, our granddaughters were not quite ready for it. Instead they went on the slide and climbed the rope spider web. 

As I sat on a park bench and watched the children playing, memories came flooding back. One in particular concerns my youngest son. When he was one year old, I placed him in a stroller and took him to the park along with Bess. It so happened that Bess was “on heat” at the time. It didn’t take long for the consequences of that last detail to become apparent.

Shortly after we arrived, Bess attracted the attention of a male dog. The dog’s owner had carelessly let him off the leash and the dog caught Bess’s scent. From a distance I could see the dog galloping towards us. Bess sat at my feet behind me and was, I think, expecting me to save her. What to do? I had only seconds to decide. The sprinting hound arrived, fully expecting to claim his prize. Instead, he was greeted by me barking at him and waving my arms up and down like a maniac. The dog looked confused and stood there, just long enough for his owner to catch him up and attach the lead on his neck, much to my relief. The owner apologized profusely, and we both agreed there was no harm done.

That might have been the end of the story, had I not noticed that something, or rather someone, was missing. In order to defend Bess’s honor, I had let go of the stroller, with my son in it, which had proceeded unguided down the path and then disappeared around the corner. It was one of those moments parents dread. I collected myself and started down the path, which had a stone wall on one side and curved gently to the left. The stroller had free-wheeled fifteen yards before crashing into the wall. Angels must have guided it to safety, I decided, and I was relieved to find my son unharmed and nonplussed. He greeted me with a large grin. 

The memory of that day was prompted by being in the place where it all happened. It seemed like yesterday. The incident with the dog in the daytime was probably the most vivid memory. As I sifted through the years, other memories came back, including one of a Sunday School picnic in the gardens. I remembered another occasion when I sat on a park bench and silently meditated, as dusk fell and the day turned from light to dark. I felt a deep connection to the park, now renewed by my son’s and granddaughters’ presence here. Naturally, this made me feel old, like living in one time and then the next, as though the present were being superimposed upon the past.

Then I adjusted to the reality of how time moves in cycles. I was experiencing the completion of a cycle in my own life and trying to make sense of it. What is time saying to me now? The end of one cycle can be the beginning of another. The natural rhythm of life is meant to propel us gently forward, not hold us in place. 

After our granddaughters had finished playing, we went to the park café and had something to eat and drink. The following day the girls came to our airbnb cottage - called Church Mouse Cottage - and played with the dolls’ house, had a story read to them, and searched for the mice hidden throughout the cottage. As we live an ocean apart, this family time is precious.

It occurs to me that my meditation on time may have been prompted by an unexpected source: the local church. The cottage is close to the church, and every quarter hour the church clock chimes. This is useful if you wake in the middle of the night and wonder what time it is, although I also wonder if it is one of the reasons why the two houses next to us have “for sale” signs outside. 

Father David