A Quote
This, from Ursula Hegi’s collection of short stories entitled Hotel of the Saints. A quote from “Freitod” (the German word meaning free death):
“Because that is the nature of being a parent, Sabine has discovered. You love your children far more than you ever loved your parents, and—in that love, and in the recognition that your own children cannot fathom the depth of your love—you come to understand the tragic unrequited love of your own parents.” (71)
Can this be defied?
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I guess I’ll understand this if I ever have kids… though my little nephew and niece are pretty great. Oh, I found your blog by searching randomly, I clicked on the Andrew Bird highlighted on my own profile to see who else liked him, since he’s still relatively obscure I assumed it would be a good indicator of people who I would have something in common with, so I followed that just long enough to find your page, I enjoyed the posts and went ahead and subscribed to your feed on my google reader, so now you have some random guy in Seattle reading your blog! Tahdah! 😉
I think that’s one of the reasons parents are eager to have grandchildren. They get to watch the ideas Hegi articulates dawn on their own children and it deepens their relationship.
It happened to me.
I’ve never heard it so well stated… though I’d argue that it is “tragic”… Children know an absolute dependance/love on their parents when they are very young that they simply do not remember the intensity of when they grow older–and that is overwhelming to a new parent too.
bk