Megan captured this beautiful souvenir of Ryan and Will at our house on Sunday. I was in the room at the time, but I was so busy talking about something or other that I didn’t register a memory of Megan’s snap. I am always talking, and will probably be boring folks stiff at my own funeral. “Close the lid already!” Happily, Will, like Kathleen, can sleep right through it.

I ask you: is there any sense memory that feels more sacred than the recollection of a child’s head upon your shoulder, brushing up now and then upon your ear? It’s no wonder that we’re tempted to think of them as angels (especially when they’re asleep): how else to account for their sudden appearance as utterly real and distinctive beings?

Kathleen and I were talking about the misery that an old friend has endured, upon discovering that her lover was unfaithful. The worst part of such betrayal is that you find yourself obliged to hold up every memory — especially the happy ones — to gimlet-eyed review. The past that you thought of as your own has been hijacked, discredited, evaporated.

The arrival of Will has had a complementary, but entirely positive effect. I simply can’t remember the reality of life without him. He’s not four months old, but he has entirely denatured the reality of my first sixty-one years. I believe that it is always that way with love.  

 

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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