I blame it on the earrings. Pearls like to sneak up on you.

At a scholarship night at Monterey (Calif.) High School, I sat in the cafeteria recalling a lifetime of sports banquets and a whole lot of spaghetti dinners.

For 30 years my first husband taught and coached at this school. From the parking lot, looking down the hill at the glittering blue curve of Monterey Bay, you can see the gym that bears his name.

Our children cut their teeth on the bleachers in that gym, and claimed the school as their own long before they got old enough to cut its classes.

Most families have some sort of identity, a "trademark" that sets them apart. The Kennedys had politics. The Corleones had the mob. We had basketball.

All things considered, we could've done worse.

But this night was not about basketball. It was about diligence, hard work, dedication and, for me, the passing of a torch.

I was there to see my children present their dad's scholarship, one that we started 10 years ago with donations that poured in after his death following a lengthy fight with cancer.

It's awarded each year to a graduating senior who is not just a student or an athlete, but an all-around good citizen.

A committee of teachers selects the recipient. But for most of those 10 years, I've presented the award myself. This year, I decided it was time to pass the honor to my kids.

My oldest (who played basketball for his dad and is pictured with him on the scholarship plaque) wanted to help, but couldn't make it.

That left it to the teachers in the family: My daughter, once a cheerleader for her dad's teams, now teaches fifth grade; and my youngest, who as a toddler had a fondness for unplugging the scoreboard during his dad's games, is now working on a teaching credential.

They were 26th on a program of more than 30 presentations. But it was worth the wait to see them standing at the podium where their dad always stood when he told corny jokes at the basketball banquets.

They were shaking hands with the scholarship winner (a lovely young woman who more than met the criteria) when I noticed my daughter's earrings.

They were mine, actually, a pair of pearls I wear all the time. I had loaned them to her in the parking lot before the program, when she realized she'd forgotten her own.

Seeing her in my earrings with her hair pulled back as I'd once wore mine, I was struck by how much she looked like me -- well, when I was her age.

Moreover, I noticed how her brother, towering over her, looked an awful lot like his dad.

I guess it shouldn't have surprised me. Children often look like their parents. They pull this from here and that from there, blue eyes from their dad, long toes from their mom and mix it all up in their own, one-of-a-kind, genetic soup.

I looked around me at a room full of parents, grinning like a herd of mules eating briars and snapping photos of their kids.

I hope they were paying attention. Life is like a video that's set on fast forward, and there is no rewind button.

One day you're sitting in a cafeteria at a banquet making your kids eat spaghetti while their dad cracks corny jokes.

Then you blink, and you're back in the same cafeteria, only your daughter is wearing your favorite earrings and your baby is flashing his daddy's smile and you're wondering how you can feel so happy with your feet in those sensible shoes.

I swear.

It's worth waking up each day just to see what happens next.

(Sharon Randall can be contacted at P.O. Box 777394, Henderson NV 89077, or at www.sharonrandall.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)