how well the race is run

the relay race of parenting

how hard it must have been to be in that greatest generation,

to have to deal with Depression and World War,

and all the prices that had to be paid if one were to endure,

today I touched a small piece of that price when I imagined a bit 

of how little our parents had time with their grandchildren,

my wife and I were born with our parents near 40,

for them marriage, and children, had to be put off

while the world struggled to right itself,

I’m not able to really imagine starving 

or being blown up or shot,

or of PTSD shell-shocking me,

however, I can cry when I think of a father away from a child,

or of a father never knowing a grandchild,

for me it’s like how much easier it can be

to grasp the tragedy of one than to grasp the tragedy of many,

I watch my son near 40 be extraordinary as a dad,

today I hear of him taking his near 4 month old son

for a stroll to a waterfall near his Minnesota home,

and I tear thinking how much my father would have loved

to be there to see that, and to celebrate it,

as parents we run in a relay race, and we know our stretch,

we know something of the hand-off before,

something of the hand-off after us,

too often we can’t know enough 

of how well the race continues to be run.

by Henry H. Walker

April 17, ’13