Slipping through my fingers…

This song did not leave an impression at all when I saw Mamma Mia- the musical in Singapore. In fact, I could not recall it being in the show even. I guess it did not have any significance then as my daughter was still in school and the time had not come yet for her to leave the nest. But when I watched the movie recently and another time with my daughter when she had come home for the holidays, it was a different story altogether. Let’s just say I went into an emotional overdrive…and reality does bite!  I can vividly remember the time when she was just a baby…

…and before we knew it, it was time for her to go to kindergarten…

Schoolbag in hand
She leaves home every morning
Waving goodbye
With an absent-minded smile

and then came the years in primary school…

I watch her go
With a surge of that well-known sadness
And I have to sit down for a while

…and after that, secondary school…

Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Along the way, there were the awards and prizes…

Slipping through my fingers
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it
Slipping through my fingers all the time

Through the years, we were together most of the time going to school in the morning and coming back together, stopping at places to eat her favourite food or I would cook for her things that she loved to eat…

Sleep in our eyes
Her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake
I let precious time go by

and we travelled here and there and had fun. She has a lot of cousins…

There’s that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I can’t deny
What happened to the wonderful adventures
The places I had planned to go
Well, some of that we did
But most we didn’t
And why I just don’t know…

…but they are all in other towns so most of the time, she was stuck with her old daddy for company…

…and then the time came when she had to leave home to pursue her further studies…

The feeling that I’m losing her forever
And without really entering her world
I’m glad whenever I can share her laughter
That funny little girl

My little baby girl has grown up now and gone out into the world on her own but one thing’s for sure, she will always be daddy’s little girl…

Sometimes I wish
That I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers…

“As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness unto children’s children.”  (Psalm 103:15-17)