Ad infinitum

As I have watched my son and daughter coming into their own over the past year or two, I parallelly fade into their background and history. I can fully relate to their individual origin stories expanding along with their identities and lives, as had mine in my early twenties. I know, too, that my personal story will continue to dissipate over another generation or two at best. There will come a time in less than 91 years when there will be no living first-hand witnesses to directly attribute the influence I hope to have had on others back to me. Yet, while the years of my writing show, it still goes back further. Because 91 years ago today, two people with their own life stories, Webster and Vivian, each bearing two family histories and numerous influences, became the parents of the man whose direct impact on my character remains among the most significant in my life.

My kids know of him but never met him. What they have heard, unfortunately, in part, comes from their Grandmother's resentment and bitterness towards the man. I find that so immoral and wrong. Her holding onto this for decades has blocked her ability to recognize anything good. And there was so much good. It's a horrible way to represent another person and an awful waste of her life's energy and time. Nothing comes from harboring resentment other than the reinforcement of negativity within your existence.

I've filled in the blanks with her and my kids. With her, it's failed to make the slightest dent. But my kids fully know and see the bigger picture. Frankly, I think living with their mom and being in shared custody through the divorce helped them learn my oft-quoted mantra that there are three sides to every story.

I won't revisit every angle of my father's influence on me; it's already heavily documented here. What did occur to me today, though, was how little I know of Webster and how, over the past few years, I've managed to learn just the slightest bits and pieces about Vivian, a brilliant legal scholar who was institutionalized due to acquiring syphilis in the early '40s. Each was a product of their own nature and nurture scenarios, which influenced my father, who, along with my mother, influenced me.

And here I am, looking at my kids becoming adults, recognizing not only my character and that of their mother but also how I adopted mine from my exposure to the character my parents adopted, along with the influences of an endless array of others interwoven along the way, recursively.

It's no secret that I can be nostalgic and sentimental. Yet, as I pause and look behind me and ahead, I feel a diminishing need for personal recognition for a successful handoff as part of a continuum. In a way, I feel a tad less impermanent, too.