A Single Man - Feb 2 2023

 

A Single Man

Feb 2 2023

I am a single man.

Childless.

On my own.

I have never known

the terror of parenthood.

The lost child, unanswered phone.

The first night

away from home,

newly licensed driver.

The newborn babe

home from the hospital,

needy

helpless

so dauntingly small;

completely responsible,

unsure what to do.

As I read somewhere,

like your heart

running around outside your body.

So with all the accoutrements of adulthood

   —   the car, the house, the job

the healthy bank account  —

I don’t yet feel grown up.

There's a selfishness to this life

that's inescapable,

no matter how much

you give to charity,

how good of an uncle you are.

The ultimate rite of passage

I will never undergo.

The children

now older adults

who will never call.

Never disappoint me

or make me proud.

And never be there

to spoon me puréed meat

and lukewarm soup

in Happy Retirement Acres,

the Caring Hands Community,

Circle of Life Home.

That phrase — the terror of parenthood — caught my eye as I perused some article, and it stuck. Maybe at first as a poetic turn of phrase. But then because it's not only something I've thought about before, it's also something I can only know intellectually: processing the idea, rather than feeling and experiencing in real life. Unless, that is, my love for my dogs is the same. Which I think is as fierce and enduring, even though I'm sure there are many who would dispute this. Or at least many non-pet people!

Parenthood, though, is still the ultimate rite of passage. Without it, one is never truly grown up.

The quote should be attributed to the author Elizabeth Stone, and here are her actual words:

Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

The refrain at the end is an homage to one of my favourite Billy Collins' poems, Snow Day: (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46707/snow-day)

. . .   that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,

the Ding-Dong School, closed.

the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,

the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,

along with — some will be delighted to hear —

the Toadstool School, the Little School,

Little Sparrows Nursery School,

Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School

the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,

and — clap your hands — the Peanuts Play School.   . . .