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diaryland

regeneration

27 February 2006 - 17:52

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>

The first generation works hard and spends conservatively. The second diversifies the family's financial interests and multiplies wealth. The third generation squanders it all.

We seem to be living in a time when we have the generations confused. On her death bed, I promised her I would look after him no matter what, and I watched myself move back a generation. I call him "baby" even though I've always hated that term of endearment for a lover. I've pondered his choices as if *I* were the older one. I prioritize where the money goes.

His father lingers between wanting to absolve himself of all responsibility and wanting to take care of children who slip between his fingers and shy away from the warm fire. His father has never been sure what generation his son truly was, never sure whether to accept him and trust him, never sure if he was diversifying interests or squandering wealth.

And the youth, our contribution to the family? Six precocious, unruly kittens we don't have the heart to give up for adoption. Although I have become the mother, the caretaker, these kittens are the portal to my own youth. They remind me that somewhere in all my adventuring, I adopted too strict a code of etiquette. As I watch them wrestle food from each other's mouths only to fall asleep in each other's arms (paws), I adopt a new motto for life, something a bit more vital: Fight to live, but don't hold grudges.

You could call our generational confusion an insidious case of the common cold, or a foray into loss and mourning that threatens our own mortality, but I hope I began to lift the fog last night when I whispered into his ear, "You're not an orphan."

"I've never been like this before."

"Your mother knows she left you with me, and your father will come around. We have to trust each other, and we have to trust ourselves to survive. We can deny it up and down, but we're doing it; we're surviving."

In our fourth year together, he is taking me back through time, beyond when I was his mother, back to when we were children and the world was simple, and we didn't question what was good, that which was good. I have never felt more with any other person that touch is innocent, that what once served as a gateway into adulthood is making us children again. I don't need to ask why he is here or whether he'll stay. The only part I almost stumble over is that there is actually someone like me, after all.

family

<<--unravel * reintegrate-->>