Among the flux, a blessed constant

Things change. That's what I wish my mother had taught me. The ice cream man won't always come by every day. Mint juleps won't always be two for a penny. Perry Como won't always be on TV. Mr. Butler won't always drive the Jenny truck. Your father won't always be young. And I won't always be here.

Maybe she didn't know. Or maybe, like most mothers, she was too busy teaching the essentials: Stand up straight. Don't chew with your mouth open. Yes, please. No, thank you.

And the eternals were forgotten.

"Don't be in such a hurry to grow up," she used to say. But that was it. There was no hint that life as it was -- breakfast, school, dinner, Rosemary on the phone, Janet across the street, movies on Saturdays, church on Sundays, my aunt stopping by -- wouldn't always be.

It startles you, change. It ambushes you, but not when it's happening. It's later, sometimes years later, when you look up and see not only all the people who are gone but all the places, too.

So many places: Drive-ins. Paragon Park. The woods behind Tower Hill School, behind the School for the Deaf. The School for the Deaf. All the five-and-dimes. Jordan Marsh. Even Jordan Marsh blueberry muffins.

When the church I went to as a child -- the old St. Bernadette's -- was abandoned for a new St. Bernadette's, I didn't like it. But I got used to it. And when the Turner Free Library burned down and Whitey's bakery closed and the Rexall Drug and the old Randolph movie theater and Leon's with its french fries disappeared, I survived.

Remick's. The Bell Shop. Wethern's. Cumming's. Colestone's. Howard Johnson's. Conrad and Chandler. Lauriat's.

I remember these names and these places the way I remember vanilla Cokes. Their sweetness lingers.

Little of my youth remains. The woods, the dirt roads, Wrigley's Variety Store, my parents, even the straight line of evergreens that separated my parents' house from the neighbor's, are gone.

What isn't, what didn't get torn down or replaced or paved over or ripped out, is a silly, frivolous thing. But I love it and I wait for it every year and I celebrate it because it is my harbinger of spring and my connection to past springs and a long ago happy childhood.

The Dairy Barn in Randolph doesn't look like much. It's an ice cream stand that shares a parking lot with a convenience store. It isn't pretty and it isn't unique.

But it exists. It's on Route 28 next to the fire station exactly where it has been since I can remember.

And that's enough for me.

I was 7 when I had my first cone there. My father bought it. "Eat it before it melts," he said. He didn't have to say it twice.

When I was 10, I was allowed to walk there. It was less than a mile from my house, nearly two miles from Rosemary's. It was an outing, something we saved for.

It was called the Dairy Queen then and it used to be half the size it is now, more square than rectangle and with not as many windows. Cones cost a dime, sundaes a quarter, banana splits 50 cents -- what you made for a whole hour of baby-sitting. It was worth it.

The Dairy Barn opened for the season last Sunday. It always opens in March, though the day varies. I drove there three hours after it unshuttered its windows -- I'm not in walking distance anymore -- and got a butterscotch sundae for me and a flurry for my daughter.

Things change. Flurries -- especially vanilla and chocolate mixed with M & M's and bananas -- are the good side of change. These didn't exist when I was a child. Neither did my daughters or my son or my grandchildren or my marriage or the life I have now.

Maybe that's why my mother didn't tell me about change. Because it's not only loss. It's gain, too. An impossible thing for a child to understand.

Beverly Beckham can be reached at bbeckham@globe.com. Listen to Beverly read and talk about her columns in her weekly podcast at boston.com/news/podcasts.