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months is not a long time. Brazil isn't so far away. The
Passover holiday is a month away, which means a visit home.
All of these do not allay my feelings of abandonment. My
youngest son, aged thirty, has accepted an important and
exciting assignment from his employer. One that might well
advance his prospects at the job, although they are already
quite good.
He is challenged and eager for this chance. He is young and seemingly has many new worlds to conquer, lots of difficult decisions about his career, his clients, his personal life to face and solve. Am I jealous? Of his youth, yes. His intellect and persona, yes. But my selfish need is to have him close by so that I can see him or talk with him at any time.
I feel old, tired, a little frightened. I feel less so when he is around. I feel important to him. What is this all about? He was away for more than a year, in Tokyo for the whole summer a few years ago. Each separation, not more than a blink for him, had been blindingly difficult for me.
Of my three children, he most resembles me, so much so that in pictures taken of him a few years back, I could swear it was me at twenty or twenty-five. This likeness is no small thing for me. It's like seeing myself all over again thirty years ago. So I guess it is really me I miss, really me I long for thirty years later.
They say youth is wasted on the young. I don't see it as as much wasted as unappreciated; with its newness, its energy, its naiveté which we tried so hard to deny and to hide. Youth is well spent by those who are not miserly. I think I was. He is not. In retrospect, most of us wish we had a freer hand in the days we struggled to hang on to ... I don't really know what. I don't think it was ever there. Life is like an amusement ride. It should be lived without holding on ... I hope he has a great trip.
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