Thanks

A year ago today I was released from the hospital with a new knee.

So we can start with that celebration.

And meander through family, and loss, and gain, and around pets with the same themes, from Oregon to Virginia, across all ages, seeing so many and being with so many and missing those we can't see. Missing them when we most wish to see them. The ups, and the downs, as the river we call life wends its way ever onward.

Cancer. Presenting everywhere. Some bullets dodged; others, well, the battles go on. The struggles are real.

Casual thoughts, moments really, come and go, when we think of someone we lost; in a particular context, wanting either to say something to them or hear from them, and just as immediately realizing, no. They are gone.

But the legacy... who we are, who we have become, has been shaped either gently or not so gently by our parents, first. Some genetic predispositions inhere in us, some givens that define stature, or mannerisms, perhaps more. I heard my son cough, and heard my own cough in his, and realized that not all that seems genetic, is. And our socializations, what we learned from birth, certainly those nurturance processes helped frame our "selves". Parsing the sources? Meh. Better to behold the discernible behaviors.

I got grit. Respect. Humility. And empathy. And some work ethic stuff. Some math, some English. I'll never forget doing school enrollment projections with my dad, nor seeing my mom read the evening paper, every night.

Nor shall I ever forget when first I heard his cough, in mine.

I got lucky, later in life; to stay in school, to find Linda, and James, and to navigate this little corner of the world, and land in the places I've landed. Given (or developed? matters not) the gift of being able to step back, think, care, count, process, and decide, I admit to personal causation on a portion of what my life has become, but only a sliver. Most is correlation, in that my just stopping and listening allows me the dignity to move, and be, that I might better know and decide if I should follow and accompany and support.

I am ever thankful for the family, first, and circumstances, second, with which I've been gifted, and through which I continue to find myself.

My target? Well, simply, to be a better partner, parent, friend, and citizen; every day, in small bites. No grand gestures, no great schemes: just shut up, stand up, and deliver, first with those I love, then through those I meet, to those with whom I disagree.

I think I'll take a walk outside.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Austin and Lockhart TX brisket tour Nov. 7-12, 2024

Rock 'n' roll

Rink blues