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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 705152" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>Thank you, Albatross.</p><p>I do not know. It is not so much that I failed, I think it is more for me, as it is for you. I never expected a rose garden, but neither did you. You love your son, and I love my own.</p><p></p><p>I think that is the centrally difficult part, for me. That somebody I love so much, a relationship that was so redemptive for each of us and the two of us together has not delivered him to a place of contentment, flourishing, functioning.</p><p></p><p>As I write this I see the fantastical aspect embedded within this assumption or expectation: that my child-rearing, that your own would yield some result, would deliver some result, which could be good or bad or any other adjective, and that the absence of this result means anything at all. About us or our kids.</p><p></p><p>Life's meaning is not delivered or endowed. It is earned. Not even revealed or discovered, it is honed, refined. Belatedly I am learning this through study of my own faith.</p><p></p><p>I have been listening to the radio about Carrie Fisher, the writer/actress who died suddenly. There are so many remembrances of her that celebrate exactly this thing. Her suffering, her mental illness, addictions, losses, all of which she used to hone her own identity, create it, endow every scar with meaning.</p><p></p><p>Not my son or any other person can give my life it's meaning. That is my own to give. And my son, our sons have their own work.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 705152, member: 18958"] Thank you, Albatross. I do not know. It is not so much that I failed, I think it is more for me, as it is for you. I never expected a rose garden, but neither did you. You love your son, and I love my own. I think that is the centrally difficult part, for me. That somebody I love so much, a relationship that was so redemptive for each of us and the two of us together has not delivered him to a place of contentment, flourishing, functioning. As I write this I see the fantastical aspect embedded within this assumption or expectation: that my child-rearing, that your own would yield some result, would deliver some result, which could be good or bad or any other adjective, and that the absence of this result means anything at all. About us or our kids. Life's meaning is not delivered or endowed. It is earned. Not even revealed or discovered, it is honed, refined. Belatedly I am learning this through study of my own faith. I have been listening to the radio about Carrie Fisher, the writer/actress who died suddenly. There are so many remembrances of her that celebrate exactly this thing. Her suffering, her mental illness, addictions, losses, all of which she used to hone her own identity, create it, endow every scar with meaning. Not my son or any other person can give my life it's meaning. That is my own to give. And my son, our sons have their own work. [/QUOTE]
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