My writing, in recent days, has slipped somewhat. I've been busy finishing out one job, applying and interviewing for another, cleaning one house, attempting to buy another, taking care of surly teenagers, calming an anxious wife... You know: busy.
But my friend A. shared something with me, and has given me permission to share it with you here.
***
The Truck Is Gone
Well God, the truck is gone. I
suppose all the hopes and dreams associated with it were gone a long time ago.
Gone before we already knew they were gone. Gone when he rejected who we are,
months, maybe even years ago. The hopes and dreams died silently before we even
knew that they were dead. The truck was just the last symbol of education, of
honor, of marriage, of all we might have wished for our son.
I'm getting used to this new
stranger. He looks like my son, sometimes I'm even fooled into believing that
he can be anything like the person I had hoped he would be. On days like today
when the truck drove away, it all seems so raw and close to the surface, but I keep
reminding myself that the man I wanted him to be died a long time ago and I was
too busy, too preoccupied with the future to notice. I wish there was some sort
of memorial for the dreams of parents. Instead I have boxes of photographs and
pictures I've taken off the walls. Yes, hope is a living thing. It breathes and
reproduces and moves in jolts and kicks and foolish ambitions. But when it
dies, there's no funeral or wake, just a broken down old red truck and the
bitter tears of resignation.
Lord help us all.
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