No, not mine, nor Mrs Ho Ho's either. I ran across something I sent to my oldest son a few years ago, when he turned 40. I post a modified version of it here, for whatever humor or wisdom it may contain.
"So - 40. Looking back, as I approached 40, I had just left one company and started with another. I had those anticipations and trepidations that, finally, I had to stop the denial and acknowledge that I was no longer a kid. I had entered the world of adulthood.
That feeling must have lasted a good six months. If you are also facing running headlong into that wall, I know that - if you have led a well-balanced life - you NEVER really reach adulthood, at least, in the sense of leaving childhood behind. You acquire adult behaviors, you build on the sense of responsibility to yourself and others that has carried you this far. (If you didn't have some of that already, you wouldn't have made it.)
I don't know if I sent you the pair of poems, both entitled "Ice Blocking" that I wrote together with an on-line friend. If not (and even if I have) I'll send them to you. They got published in a local paper. But, given your re-developed talent for walking around the block on your hands, and inflicting the neighbor with a plague of pink flamingos, I think you have already 'gotten' this message.
I think I will append the poems here. The cap-and-bells icon is one I used on a bulletin board where I 'met' Marsha, the author of the first of the pair. Sadly, she died recently (circa 2006), the result of pneumonia acquired while attempting an endurance feat well beyond her capacity."
Dad
Ice Blocking
Marsha Menard (R.I.P)
A huge block of party ice, and one towel.
A semi-steep slope covered in recently-watered grass
It smells so sweet, looks so green, looks so perfect.
I plop the ice upon the top of the slope,
Sliding the ice a little to get it ready.
I cover the ice with a towel so that it does not stick to my butt. I sit, raising my legs, balancing on the big block of ice. "Wheeeeeee!" I shout joyfully as I summer-toboggan down the slope ice melting sliding slipping me off rolling at the bottom giggling hands and feet flying in the air as I bounce here and there upon the grass the ice zooming ahead of me.
I stand up catching my bearings laughing at myself and the supremely childish fun I'm having.
I catch up to the block of ice, and pull it by the towel that is now half frozen to it. I pull the ice back up the hill, feet happy, heart racing, and ready to slide again and again, to my heart's content, merrily crashing at the bottom of the grassy slope, eager to go again and again and again and again.
The ice melts slowly, eventually it is time to go. I am forced once more to become an adult again. "sigh"
Ice Blocking (the child you leave behind)
"Grow up!" my mother often said,
"Leave childish ways behind!"
I did grow up, or tall at least,
With longer legs, horizons to reach.
I walked too fast, and for a time,
I left my little child behind.
I had a long, hard run,
Horizons still just out of reach.
But now, I'm old and slow, you see,
And my child has caught up with me.
The one who runs through sprinklers
As we did the other day,
Or lugs an ice block up a hill
And slides down all the way (I wish I'd thought of that)
Moms are always right, I know.
(At least, in their own mind.)
But NO adult can be complete
Who leaves their child behind.
Ho Ho Tai (written a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away)
Marsha, I have a feeling that resting in peace is not what you are up to. I thought I got a glimpse of you sliding down a cloud.
"So - 40. Looking back, as I approached 40, I had just left one company and started with another. I had those anticipations and trepidations that, finally, I had to stop the denial and acknowledge that I was no longer a kid. I had entered the world of adulthood.
That feeling must have lasted a good six months. If you are also facing running headlong into that wall, I know that - if you have led a well-balanced life - you NEVER really reach adulthood, at least, in the sense of leaving childhood behind. You acquire adult behaviors, you build on the sense of responsibility to yourself and others that has carried you this far. (If you didn't have some of that already, you wouldn't have made it.)
I don't know if I sent you the pair of poems, both entitled "Ice Blocking" that I wrote together with an on-line friend. If not (and even if I have) I'll send them to you. They got published in a local paper. But, given your re-developed talent for walking around the block on your hands, and inflicting the neighbor with a plague of pink flamingos, I think you have already 'gotten' this message.
I think I will append the poems here. The cap-and-bells icon is one I used on a bulletin board where I 'met' Marsha, the author of the first of the pair. Sadly, she died recently (circa 2006), the result of pneumonia acquired while attempting an endurance feat well beyond her capacity."
Dad
Ice Blocking
Marsha Menard (R.I.P)
A huge block of party ice, and one towel.
A semi-steep slope covered in recently-watered grass
It smells so sweet, looks so green, looks so perfect.
I plop the ice upon the top of the slope,
Sliding the ice a little to get it ready.
I cover the ice with a towel so that it does not stick to my butt. I sit, raising my legs, balancing on the big block of ice. "Wheeeeeee!" I shout joyfully as I summer-toboggan down the slope ice melting sliding slipping me off rolling at the bottom giggling hands and feet flying in the air as I bounce here and there upon the grass the ice zooming ahead of me.
I stand up catching my bearings laughing at myself and the supremely childish fun I'm having.
I catch up to the block of ice, and pull it by the towel that is now half frozen to it. I pull the ice back up the hill, feet happy, heart racing, and ready to slide again and again, to my heart's content, merrily crashing at the bottom of the grassy slope, eager to go again and again and again and again.
The ice melts slowly, eventually it is time to go. I am forced once more to become an adult again. "sigh"
Ice Blocking (the child you leave behind)
"Grow up!" my mother often said,
"Leave childish ways behind!"
I did grow up, or tall at least,
With longer legs, horizons to reach.
I walked too fast, and for a time,
I left my little child behind.
I had a long, hard run,
Horizons still just out of reach.
But now, I'm old and slow, you see,
And my child has caught up with me.
The one who runs through sprinklers
As we did the other day,
Or lugs an ice block up a hill
And slides down all the way (I wish I'd thought of that)
Moms are always right, I know.
(At least, in their own mind.)
But NO adult can be complete
Who leaves their child behind.
Ho Ho Tai (written a long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away)
Marsha, I have a feeling that resting in peace is not what you are up to. I thought I got a glimpse of you sliding down a cloud.
