A GEEZER SEES THE FUTURE

JUNE 8, 2021 – Sunday brought sunshine to our backyard and upon our son Cory and his daughter, Illiana; son Byron and his wife, Mylène; nieces Linnea and Erica; Byron’s close friends, high school classmates and teammates—Christian and Kumar.

As an elder, I found hope in talk and banter, play and food, picture-posing and theater direction by a five-and-a-half-year-old who’d gone from “bashful-behind-a-chair” to “boisterous-at-center-stage.”

Illiana ran care-free in her own little world. Her imagination evades the confines that age and social pressure impose. Breaking from moto perpetuo, she lay on the grass alongside my wife, who said, “Illi, what do you see in those clouds?” In the puffs of condensing water vapor against a sea blue sky, Illiana saw everything except clouds.  Later, through the wide-open doorway of the bathroom, she proclaimed—to howls of laughter—how good it feels “to poop.” Amen.

Christian is an accomplished actor, tap-dancer extraordinaire, and former soccer star. Now a New Yorker, he’s working his way onto TV and silver screens. He accompanied Byron and Mylène back to Minnesota for the wedding of a mutual high school friend—who’s also migrated to The Big City. Though a humorist, Christian’s a serious student of the human condition. He gives the world reason for hope.

Kumar is another former soccer star and a wit to rival any other wag—including Christian. Once a (brilliant) intern in my office, Kumar is now a guide and counselor, resource and motivator for under-privileged youth striving for what the over-privileged take for granted. He is full of brains, energy, and motivation—more hope for the future.

Our nieces:

Linnea, a polished ballroom dancer and accomplished violist, is a probation officer who works her job with unparalleled dedication and the insights of experience. How many lives, I wondered, has she fundamentally influenced at a critical juncture? With smarts, heart, and soul, she makes the world a better place.

Erica, once a cellist, is a writer and celebrity stand-up comic—in town from L.A. to headline at a club in Minneapolis. She’s a professional wit, a relentless student of human foibles and an artist at set-ups, timing, punchlines, and reading/reacting to an audience. Blessed are those who make us laugh—and we who can.

Our sons:

Cory, who thinks so much, he doesn’t do enough, is adored by his daughter. (As Jackie O famously said, “If we don’t do right by our kids, nothing else much matters.”) His adoption issues inspired him to activism, which led my wife and me to the central issue of our land: racial justice.

Byron: If a mensch ever was, it is he. And Mylène, with French accent, Portuguese roots, and European cultivation is so much at home with us we no longer notice the accent except in contrast to our American accents in lame attempts to speak her mother tongue. No better mate could the mensch have found.

There in the sunshine of well-traveled smiles, I found abundant hope and all regrets in retreat.

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© 2021 by Eric Nilsson