Life Cycle
I watched my granddaughter graduate high school yesterday, along with 790 other kids. I wonder what the future holds for them. It’s sort of magical to think of those lives shooting off into all directions, some to do great things, some to do bad things, some to do nothing. One can only hope it’s mostly good but if life has taught me anything, it’s this. There will be those days that test your fortitude and people can make really bad decisions. Lessons, I suppose, they will eventually learn. Or not.
Personally, I only remember two things about my high school graduation. My great aunt Helen gave me a nice pair of slacks, and my friend Eddie rented a red convertible Ford Galaxy and we drove to Galveston. I have no recollection of what we actually did. I was still at least a year away from my first drink, so I know it wasn’t that. I do remember that riding in the car was pretty fine, and life seemed promising, which, as it turned out, was the case. I’ve had a good life.
But it is sort of funny to think that all the fussing and fighting and straining over the last 58 years since I graduated high school, has led me to this, sitting at the table of my son, in his kitchen, while the house sleeps, writing 300 words or so in the early morning with a cup of coffee at my side. Of course, very little of my life was planned. It was just lived. And even though it’s a little funny, this table feels like a perfect place to be, on this day, at this time, as I walk to that moment down the road when I complete the cycle of life.
John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale