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Just finished my second reading of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. And the thing that has struck me, every time I've sat down for one of the countless micro-installments that have comprised my two readings of it, is how uncannily the voice of the little boy resembles that of my grandson.

More than that, how the spare and scattered bits of dialogue invoke his spirit and at times even capture the character of our relationship. On my side, the role of protector, caregiver, and would-be mentor. On his, the role of naive innocent, imperfectly protected from the brutality of a world in which any hope, beyond day-to-day survival, is never fully formed and only briefly glimpsed.

And in between we live the grim reality of the road, take our daily steps into that uncertain future. Confront the likelihood that regardless of what luck I may have or what effort I might make to extend my own life, there is little chance that I will see this infinitely-precious child through much more than the very beginnings of his.

Perhaps it is life's only mercy that we cannot know the future within a reasonable certainty...

LPK
LiveJournal
5.24.2013

How It Is

Apr. 9th, 2013 11:14 am
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He was a long time going to sleep. And after a while he turned and looked at the man. His face in the small light streaked with black from the rain like some old world thespian. Can I ask you something? he said.

Yes. Of course.
Are we going to die?
Sometime. Not now.
And we're still going south.
Yes.
So we'll be warm.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay what?
Nothing. Just Okay.
Go to sleep.
Okay.
I'm going to blow out the lamp. Is that okay?
Yes. That's okay.
And then later in the darkness: Can I ask you something?
Yes. Of course you can.
What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay.

He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence. The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, trembling and brief. If only my heart were stone.

from The Road
by Cormac McCarthy
Vintage Books, 2006

This is how it is with my grandson and me. But, for today, I will resume getting fit and do whatever I can to extend my life, as far as may be possible, into the time that he may need me.

I will work stiff joints and stretch the unaccustomed limbs and push against the weight of this aging vessel, this scarred container of my earthly being. So that when I'm needed I may shelter, protect, nurture and defend. Even if all else and all others have long since failed.

And I will do this until one of us ends, when nothing of what remains can possibly matter...

LPK
LiveJournal
4.9.2013

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