Destined

 

Perhaps it was that his subconscious

led him to create that geographic distance

to break the spell of the emotional closeness

that stifled his independent future where

his experiences would be his alone, this

the youngest of our children, the very one

with whom his parents found bonds of

attachment in a shared love of all that

seemed of vital importance in the quality

of their lives, separately and together. When

his father many decades earlier painted a

picture of this son that hangs on our bedroom

wall perhaps subconsciously he faces away

eyes on some distant landscape as he stands

poised on a promontory, fields and forests

stretched out before and below his beloved

figure. We see this distant son every day on

awakening and on preparing for slumber, eyes

fixed on a distant horizon, back to us, and no

bereavement on our part can convince him to

turn his head, look at us, for his future called.