Generations

As April arrives, and springtime springs, I find myself thinking of home and my parents and their garden and times long past. Since April is also National Poetry Month, I am reminded of this poetic piece I crafted many years ago.


Generations

In the early morning, on my hazy quest for a cup of coffee, I am stopped in my tracks by an image of absolute clarity. Through the kitchen window of my parents’ home, I glimpse the two most important men in my life. One is thirty-five years my senior, the other thirty-two years my junior. It’s summer, and I’ve come home to visit.

Remembering these moments amidst the hassles of daily living is important.

The hour is early, before the intense humidity of a St. Louis summer can make being outside unbearable, and the sunlight is just beginning to peer over the neighbor’s house. In an awkward angle from my position in the hallway, peering sideways through the glass and around the obtrusive windowpanes, past the hummingbird feeder, and over the patio fence, I see them. Sitting on a bench under a tree in the botanical garden that is my parents’ backyard are my father and my son.

Life is good.

They had disappeared out the back door a while ago – my dad to turn on the fountain or take out the trash and my son to look for bugs, frogs, turtles, or any other creature that might be lurking among the hosta lilies, dwarf conifers, and rose bushes.

Life is good because my family is safe.

My wife and I and our two children live in Colorado, a fourteen-hour drive from my childhood home. In the past four years, I’ve been home just once. Even though I’m a teacher, it always seems like summer vacation is too short, as I spend much of it taking classes. When my parents, who are now in their seventies, come out to visit, they always stay in a hotel, and their two or three day visits always seem to be over just as they’ve begun. But there on the bench, my son still in his pajamas, it seems like there’s all the time in the world.

Life is good because my family is safe, and they’re happy.

I watch them for a few moments, but it seems like an hour. At various points, Austen talks animatedly, waving his arms and pointing, or sits quietly, contemplating the scene, leaning into his grandpa, and occasionally tugging on his shirt. My father sits calmly, shoulders slumping slightly, listening to my son and seeing the garden through his eyes. My dad said later that he often forgets to take time to sit and enjoy the garden. Between taking care of the garden and working a new job as a financial advisor, he rarely takes time to smell the proverbial roses. When my son leans over and rests his head against his grandpa’s arm, I know the meaning of life.

Life is good because my family is safe, and they’re happy, and they’re sheltered, and they’re here.

That’s the key, isn’t it? Being present.