Why, We Ask

Today is his birthday. Long distance,
we wish him a happy birthday. Casually,
as though there is nothing particularly
extraordinary about parents' unease,
sadness at the disconcerting reality that
this man, advanced enough in his
middle years, faces life companionless.

A success in every way imaginable
from his career in science, to his well
remunerated position; a man who travels
the world to conferences, and to experience
other geographies, cultures and societies.
A home owner and an outdoor enthusiast,
he skis, canoes and kayaks, explores
wilderness areas, climbs mountains,
valuing to all things natural in this world.

He is an accomplished furniture maker,
using trade tools of a bygone era. He is an
imaginative potter, gifting friends and family
with his lovely symmetrical designs. He is a
theatre buff. He revels in picking wild seasonal
fruits, converting them to preserves. He can
bake bread as well as his mother does. His is a
firm and gentle touch of biological and aquatic
life forms. He volunteers for social campaigns
and projects to help the world toward fairness.

Why, we went to know, is this man, our
youngest child, alone to celebrate this
significant day? He will plan, we know, a
mountain trek and perhaps see a film in a
cinema close to home. With luck, a friend may
share the evening and they will dine together,
in recognition of the day. He will think, no doubt,
of his choice who spurned him once and then
again years later, while he still had hope.

Anguished parents, wishing greater inner
comforts for their child pause to contemplate
a life barren of intimacy and the potential
for parenthood, for he so loves children.
Why, they ask one another, did this occur,
this unfulfilled promise of a life tenderly
shared? How could it happen, that this
trusting, outgoing exemplar of personal
success is alone on this, his birth day?