One day after thinking and writing about the vital role played by elderly people in our society, I spent some time with my three 20-somethings plus the boys’ girlfriends at a cafe up on Potrero Hill late Sunday morning.
Driving across the Bay Bridge into the city under the bright Western sky, I was thinking about how I’d probably end up composing a companion piece today, this one about young people, their hopes and dreams, an uplifting kind of post.
Yesterday’s story was called “Old Folks;” this one could be called “Young Folks.” I’d like the synchronicity.
These five are all so fresh and vibrant with their youthful energy, yet they also bear the uncertainties of their demographic — smart, passionate, focused on the future, but worried about the state of the world they are inheriting. They are beautiful and funny, loving and each in their own way artistic, but deeply cynical about wealth and power. They worry about climate change and the rise of hate. They work hard in low-paying jobs and hold varying levels of college debt. They believe they will never be able to afford to own a house. They are not sure yet whether they want to have kids of their own.
But I hope they will.
The neighborhood where we met for brunch pulses with the types of lively restaurants that continue to make San Francisco a very special place, especially for people of their ages.
Sharing a meal out like this is our family tradition, recently renewed, and it is always special and energizing for me. But as it turned out, this time it was also going to be a heartbreaking reminder that all things and all people must pass, as we all of all ages know only too well.
As we were seated, the kids told me that they’d received word overnight that their maternal grandmother was dying. Their Mom, my ex-wife, had flown back east to be with her during her final hours, and thankfully, she had gotten there in time.
During our brunch, the text message came in that it was now time for the eldest of our three children, Aidan, to step up and say his final goodbye to the lady they have always known only as “Mimi.”
My strong, sweet, empathic son stepped aside to speak quietly into his cellphone with his sole remaining grandparent, or at least to try to. A few minutes later he returned.
“She didn’t say anything back,” he told us, his voice faltering, “but I could hear her breathing. I think she probably heard me.”
His girlfriend placed her hand gently on his arm. He looked away and asked if I had any tissues. I handed him a bunch. We discussed the research that the last sense to go before death was the sense of hearing.
I thought back over the many years I’d known their kindly, plain-spoken grandmother who’d always put her family first and somehow welcomed me into it after my first painful divorce, when I was clearly broken and trying to start my life over.
And I also remembered her unrestrained joy at the birth of our children. She’d come out to help.
But also I recalled her frank warning and assessment of my frenetic work/lifestyle of those years trying always to be in at least two places at the same time. “You’re burning the candle at both ends, David. That never works out for anybody.”
And then, much later, I remember how she told me I would always be part of her family even after her daughter and I had broken up, and how much that meant to me, even as I tried once again, unsuccessfully, to move on. And I remember wondering at the time, “What kind of love is this?”
During her final years, after she lost her husband, whom she loved very deeply, she declined into an inconsolable sadness. A darkening cloud of dementia closed in on her, but my kids reported that she always perked up, happy to see them whenever they visited, even when she no longer could remember their names.
Soon all of that will come to its natural end. “I can’t even imagine visiting with Mimi not there. How can I?” Aidan said.
None of us had an answer for him. Maybe there isn’t one.
We kept on talking about the world at large at our table, and about our personal hopes and dreams. And also about random things. Then as we parted, after exchanging hugs all around, all five of them smiled gamely for my camera. But by then there weren’t any dry eyes left in our little circle, and we’d pretty much used up my pocketful of tissues.
As I drove away from Potrero Hill, back across the Bay, it suddenly hit me like a bolt of lightening that — of course — I have always known deep in my heart exactly what that kind of love that was, is, and always will be.
The only kind.
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