One thing that I feel I'm really good at it passing along things that I run across during the course of the day to those people who I know will appreciate what I'm passing on. It might be a new book, Web site, news article, upcoming movie or play, museum opening, exercise, or recipe. For whatever reason, I've been pretty good in my life about picking up on and remembering those things that particular friends and family find important or have an interest in or have expressed a passion for. When I see something I know someone would take pleasure in or benefit from, it makes me happy in some way to extend it on.
To that end, here's a link to something that I think anyone will benefit from and that everyone should definitely click. It's a link to a post from a blog called Straight Outta Boise that my longtime friend Clark recently started. I met Clark way back when I was 21. We worked at the same newspaper. He was the Ag editor. I was the cub reporter who didn't know the first thing about anything. Clark not only showed me the ropes, he made life in a new job in a new city a hell of a lot easier. He's been a valued friend since. He's about as smart a person as I know. He's even funnier. He runs marathons in his spare time. He worked his way to becoming an attorney but remained a true and avid outdoors man in the truest sense. All the while, he's remained one of the most down to earth people I know.
This particular post concerns his mom, who recently moved to Clark's city of Boise after losing her husband of many, many years to cancer. As always, Clark's writing is funny and personable, but this post is also particularly touching, moving, meaningful, and thought-provoking, especially for anyone who has a bond with their parents and for anyone who cares about and helps foster the relationship between his or her parents and his or her own children.
I found this post so moving and meaningful for a couple reasons. One, I never really had a relationship with my grandparents. They were gone before I reached an age where I could form but a scant few memories of them, and those times I was in their presence before that were few and far between. Growing up, it was difficult for me when my friends and other relatives would head off to their grandparents for a visit or when their grandparents would come to visit them for birthday, holidays, cookouts, and other times. I could never relate to what it must be like to have a grandparent in any sense other than I was just envious. I always wondered what it would have been like to head off to my grandparents for a couple weeks in the summer or have my grandfather take me fishing or to ball games. I always wondered what it would have been like to have a grandmother dote on me. As I grew older, I knew I had missed out on something special, including having relationships with people older and wiser that could have taught me much.
I continue to miss those relationships today, particularly as I've watched how my children have benefited so much over the years from the relationships they have with their grandparents. Watching firsthand how their grandmothers take such interest in their lives makes me entirely grateful and appreciative, but also a little vacant and hallow somehow. My wife consistently speaks so lovingly of her grandmother, who passed years back but who meant so much to her and so many others growing up. I see and recognize ways constantly of how her grandmother's love influences my wife's own feelings and ideas about family; its an influence that's strong and that I believe has resonated down to my children despite never having known their great-grandmother.
Clark's words, however, offer something more than a relationship between a grandmother and grandchildren. At least to me, his post is also rooted in a son's love for his mother and the worry that this invokes. Although he doesn't explicitly state as much, I could feel the pain he feels for his mother's loss and the deep, deep care contained in his words. There's anxiety residing somewhere in these words, in the sense that no one knows what life holds tomorrow for those we hold close; we can only hope for the best and do everything possible today in order that we have no regrets tomorrow, no regrets about what we could have done or said for our loved ones to make their lives better.
There's much "manhood" and maturity in Clark's words. What he wrote may not be a complete coming-of-age realization, but it certainly contains at least some bits and pieces of someone who realizes that life is constantly on the move and that death and sorrow is a reality, but so too is carrying on and paving new beginnings. There's a maturity and sense of responsibility involved in helping our children create new possibilities but also helping our parents create new possibilities. There's growth involved to reach a place where our relationships with our parents transcend beyond being the child who has traditionally been the one receiving the care and moving into a space and realm where we are giving and doing the caring.
I'm happy for my friend Clark and the new beginning he's now experiencing. I'm also very happy to pass that experience along to others.
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