The Son also Rises

I had a chance yesterday to spend a lot of time with one of my favorite people on the planet, and I'm not just saying that because I helped make him, my son. I am (almost) insanely fond of my two children--as marvelous as yours may well be, and I'm sure they are, I get the goofiest grin in all of creation when I see 'my kids'. Lest you think I'm somewhat biased, nepotism and blood relationships and all, I must point out that my wife, living saint that she is, is responsible for how they turned out and did all the heavy lifting while I'm in charge of looking at the pictures of their growing up years. I'm a big fan and she did a wonderful job.

My children are actually adults--I can concede this point effortlessly when I type; I have considerably more difficulty at almost any other time. And if you want to see an aging Hipster turn as white as a sheet, be in my house when the telephone rings after ten o'clock at night. Neither of my wife's children (who look just like mine--I typed that in case today is the day she stumbles across these scribblings) live under our roof, as Michelle is a full-time student at Eastern Connecticut State University, and comes home on weekends and holidays, and Patrick has his own life not all that far from us, in Gales Ferry, Connecticut. She is nearly twenty-two and he is almost twenty-seven and when the phone rings at night, I make horror movies about what could have befallen them. I have a very vivid imagination--I make Stephen King look tame, if you follow my drift. That I will always be like this when darkness falls is how I know I am a parent.

Monday, though, was a day I got to spend with my son because he finished his medical appointment early. His, and my daughter's, genetic inheritance includes diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, shogren's syndrome plus an illness traded for a third round pick in the upcoming NFL draft. All from my side of the family. After complaining for weeks about the very things that, in hindsight for me, were the portents for my medical mystery tour, his mother and I talked him into finally seeing someone. He's handling what's happening very well and I shouldn't be surprised he's so adult about it all--after all, he is an adult.

Anyway, after his stop at his physician, he stopped by the old homestead where I was in the process of changing after yet more of the most fun I can have with my clothes on, physical therapy to rehab my left knee. Neither he nor I had anyplace to be or anyone to please, except ourselves, so we rode out to look at itty-bitty computer notebooks in the last remaining big-box electronics store. Neither of us need one of these teeny-weenie computers but they're cute and cuddly and crammed with features and possibilities. Admittedly, the vistas are considerably wider and the horizons more inviting when you're almost twenty-seven than when you're barreling down on fifty-seven. Still, bright and shiny though tiny, works its magic, no matter how jaundiced and jaded the eye of the beholder otherwise is.

We talked about everything and nothing at the same time-for hours and hours. I've read where the technical description is 'elliptical conversation'; such a pity I don't play Scrabble as I suspect there's bonus points in there somewhere. Whatever it's called, it was an experience I've enjoyed with both of my children on more than one occasion but never frequently enough to reduce it to the routine. It's still magic when it happens because I never had the opportunity when I was the lad with my dad. He was too busy being busy and I could never figure out what I needed to say to him and by the time I did, he was gone.

I still remember everything about my son's birth, absolutely everything despite my wife's insistence that this is impossible. I waited my entire life for him to be born--I have forgotten nothing and treasure the joy of his, and his sister's, being in my life everyday. Monday was another bright and shining page in my book of memories, to be revisited and enjoyed over and over.
-bill kenny