Postcard 13

"Some would ask, what are we to do in a world that crumbles to the touch. In a world that skins and dies where it stands like trying ain't enough. To family is all you can do. To family is all you can do." B. Callahan   

Greetings from my family reunion on my mothers side, solid and stolid people and oh so boring. There are at least three insurance men here and two small time business magnates flew in on their own planes. What is this thing called family? My two sons get further and further from me into themselves as young men. Not estranged but who can know another person - even one you cradled into this world even one who runs hot with your own blood like silver. I don't know their days, their festering thoughts into the world, the little objects dear to them like talisman, special in a drawer of clutter. 

My own father, what was his life before and after me. My grandfather - 90 years old today - how do I know him? "Start at the beginning…" and 90 years later I would only have one version. He was my age in 1959 and he sits right in front of me and soon, like my grandmother, will be a treasure lost and my own grandchildren, if I raised mine right in a certain way, and they theirs, will say, "You knew my great great grandfather. What was he like?" 

A good man, solid, an elm tree with shade.