The Mysteries of Life

Children, with their alert antennae
to alternatives to the familiar
observe and absorb all that
surrounds them, their minds
fully charged with discoveries and
curiosities, their memories banking
experience as they forge their way
through early years learning that
life is an excitingly spontaneous
adventure punctuated by 
mysterious absences, one raptly
fascinating the other an oddly grim
disadvantage, leaving a deep,
dark and puzzling vacuum. The
old warm and comforting softness
of the hairy old dog whose family
presence preceded his own,
suddenly absent, nowhere to be
seen, sight of its worn ball an odd
rebuke, not to forget. His parents'
silent unsmiling faces and wan
reassurances unfamiliar and
frightening ... a rehearsal for that
time his grandfather began forgetting
his grandson, failing ... failing to
visit evermore, despite questions and
pleas. And finally, those bad dreams, 
his mother abandoning him, she
has forgotten about him, where is she?
And when he asks at bedtime if she
will go away, she tells him never.