In the mix of my mother's dairy entries, there is a letter to her from her fiance. My father.
"On the occasion of your 21st birthday, I ask these things of you... gratitude for the most wonderful friends and family in the world, ambition for a future as full as time will allow, faith in religion designed to make peace of mind and eventually peace on earth, strength to carry you through the years of engaged life in such a way that it is one of the greatest stages of your development, vigor in your writing and work. Learn to become a post graduate student in your spare time, to
make known your affection for those you love. And when June comes and you at last have to admit that the beaten path on Alden Road to the Academy has been worn out, go out into the world and get a job that can show how you've been using your score of years."
He wrote out a sonnet for her, and gave her a white orchid.
"When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate-
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope.
featured like him, like him with friends possessed.
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least.
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Happily I think on thee- and then my state
(like to the lark at break of day arising
from sullen earth) sings at heaven's gate.
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
that then I scorn to change my state with kings."
Shakespeare, XXIX
From my vantage point seventy years in the future, I am privy to the fact that each of my parents struggled with disgrace. Discontent. Feelings of failure. When he wrote these words my father had no reason to expect such things. Nor would it have helped him if he did.
I live on Alden Road. My children have walked that beaten path. Some still do. Well, mostly they drive. Knowing that their grandmother traveled the same patch of earth, stills my scurrying thoughts on a morning when they are running late, and the lunch they have packed seems too meager for a demanding day.
It does nothing to help me sustain the illusion that they will somehow escape the tears and uncertainty that speckled their grandparents's lives. But it does help me know that one day they will live like royalty. And that heaven is listening after all.
