I am sitting here on a cold Monday morning, the porcelain images of Obi and Lil are a few inches away. Obi regards the headlines of the Times with mild disapproval; Lil, for her part, looks over her teacup at an invisible person plainly in need of sympathy.
Though I cannot hear from them directly any longer, their manner of life characterized by generosity and the enjoyment of life's simple pleasures--these direct my own ways and thought patterns every day. It's that way with our human legacies--things we receive, both good and ill, dark ways and light--handed down willy-nilly to succeeding generations.
Our common human longing is for the past to be unlocked and explained so that we can see our way forward. Children ask again and again for the story of their parents' first romantic meeting, their eyes shining to hear of its glory. In their innocence, they are already looking for a mate!
Now that you have all grown up and left, it's a good time to reflect on where I came from and where Obi and Lil came from. Values and patterns of life are passed down, mostly unconsciously, the unhealthy and the healthy, the constructive with the destructive. I feel stuck in patterns I learned from my parents, and the only way I figure to get unstuck is to open up a conversation with you, a conversation with a past you may know little about but which directs your steps to this day.
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