Today is my son's birthday. Even more than last year, when he turned 18, I feel today he is a young man. This is because he has graduated high school and will be starting college in just over three weeks. This has stirred many feelings in me.
When my daughter was growing up I gave her a silk rose at the start of every school year. At the start of her senior year I gave her a white silk rose. She thus ahs a bouquet of a dozen red roses and one white one. I finally told her that I did so because I never wanted her to feel desperate or lonely for love, and in so feeling make bad choices. She had a bouquet of roses all the time, and did not have to accept a lesser man only to get flowers and love. I loved her all the time, and I wanted her to have that emotional security, that certainty.
For my son it has been different. I don't give flowers to men. Instead, I wanted him to know he was supported by and connected to me, always. And so I have slowly given him what I call the shards of Narsil. For fans of the Lord of the Rings this needs no explanation. For others, Narsil is Elendil's sword that breaks beneath him as he is killed by Sauron. His son Isildur uses the hilt shard to cut the ring off Sauron's hand. After the disaster that kills Isildur, his squire Ohtar brings the ring of Barahir and the shards of Narsil back to Imladris. The shards are treasured when all other heirlooms are lost because it is said that one day they will be reforged. Of course they are, into Anduril, the victorious sword of Aragorn.
This image had and has peculiar power and significance to me. I have very few items of my father's, but I have quietly kept them for 40 years, the only physical evidence I even had a father. They are the shards of Narsil, the heirlooms treasured after all others have been lost, or thrown away, or burned down. And they have a strange, almost talismanic significance to me, a sense that I am connected to my father and to my ancestors, and that perhaps I will make a better life than what they suffered, and what I suffered. And indeed I have. In that sense I have reforged those shards into something new and useful.
I have slowly given elements of those shards to Michael over the years. Today, he will get much more of them. He will receive some of my fathers cuff links, and he will receive my father's drafting tools. Michael likes French cuff shirts, and he does not know that there is a store of cuff links waiting for him. And he is entering an engineering and production program, and may have need of those tools. He will also receive my reconditioned bicycle, a gift promised three years ago. We will have to make up for three years of rides together lost.
And when Michael goes to college it will be a major moment for me. I never thought I would live to see this. And I have accomplished a goal I held very high and never thought to see- both my children in college. I have done my job. I have delivered children to the cusp of adulthood who are quality people.
And so, instead of the fragments of a lost life, talismanic items symbolic of loss but also hope, I give to him family heirlooms, symbols of heritage and accomplishment. The reforging of Narsil is accomplished, and I therefore have no use for the shards.
The connection of fathers to sons and daughters is different, or at least for this father. I wanted to give my daughter an image of a reality I trust she holds inside herself- emotional security and self-worth. But fathers are connected to sons in a different way. We share literal DNA. His Y chromosome comes from me, my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather. Etc, etc, etc. I want him to go into the world in peace and with the security that he has the approval of his father. That he has already done well, and that we share something inexpressible, both in DNA and in emotions and activities.
Happy Birthday, Michael. Your gifts are for you for your life. Go out and do well my son.
Ted
When my daughter was growing up I gave her a silk rose at the start of every school year. At the start of her senior year I gave her a white silk rose. She thus ahs a bouquet of a dozen red roses and one white one. I finally told her that I did so because I never wanted her to feel desperate or lonely for love, and in so feeling make bad choices. She had a bouquet of roses all the time, and did not have to accept a lesser man only to get flowers and love. I loved her all the time, and I wanted her to have that emotional security, that certainty.
For my son it has been different. I don't give flowers to men. Instead, I wanted him to know he was supported by and connected to me, always. And so I have slowly given him what I call the shards of Narsil. For fans of the Lord of the Rings this needs no explanation. For others, Narsil is Elendil's sword that breaks beneath him as he is killed by Sauron. His son Isildur uses the hilt shard to cut the ring off Sauron's hand. After the disaster that kills Isildur, his squire Ohtar brings the ring of Barahir and the shards of Narsil back to Imladris. The shards are treasured when all other heirlooms are lost because it is said that one day they will be reforged. Of course they are, into Anduril, the victorious sword of Aragorn.
This image had and has peculiar power and significance to me. I have very few items of my father's, but I have quietly kept them for 40 years, the only physical evidence I even had a father. They are the shards of Narsil, the heirlooms treasured after all others have been lost, or thrown away, or burned down. And they have a strange, almost talismanic significance to me, a sense that I am connected to my father and to my ancestors, and that perhaps I will make a better life than what they suffered, and what I suffered. And indeed I have. In that sense I have reforged those shards into something new and useful.
I have slowly given elements of those shards to Michael over the years. Today, he will get much more of them. He will receive some of my fathers cuff links, and he will receive my father's drafting tools. Michael likes French cuff shirts, and he does not know that there is a store of cuff links waiting for him. And he is entering an engineering and production program, and may have need of those tools. He will also receive my reconditioned bicycle, a gift promised three years ago. We will have to make up for three years of rides together lost.
And when Michael goes to college it will be a major moment for me. I never thought I would live to see this. And I have accomplished a goal I held very high and never thought to see- both my children in college. I have done my job. I have delivered children to the cusp of adulthood who are quality people.
And so, instead of the fragments of a lost life, talismanic items symbolic of loss but also hope, I give to him family heirlooms, symbols of heritage and accomplishment. The reforging of Narsil is accomplished, and I therefore have no use for the shards.
The connection of fathers to sons and daughters is different, or at least for this father. I wanted to give my daughter an image of a reality I trust she holds inside herself- emotional security and self-worth. But fathers are connected to sons in a different way. We share literal DNA. His Y chromosome comes from me, my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather. Etc, etc, etc. I want him to go into the world in peace and with the security that he has the approval of his father. That he has already done well, and that we share something inexpressible, both in DNA and in emotions and activities.
Happy Birthday, Michael. Your gifts are for you for your life. Go out and do well my son.
Ted
A beautiful post - you have demonstrated your love not in generic ways but rather specifically tailored to each person. Who they are as individuals, including their sex, matters. Love says that who you are...who YOU are...is important.
ReplyDeleteLove nurtures, protects, and encourages. Paul wrote about the qualities of love in I Corinthians 13, you have written of them in the lives of your children.
Again, a marvelous piece.
-D-