Dear Four,
I am tempted to believe that certain emotions require huge funding. Huge funding, and this is not because you’re required to splash the cash; nope, it just has to be there.
Say, hating your children. I have never heard a poor man say that. Not that he cannot, but he can’t afford to. The children are literally his only accomplishments, proof that he’s ever put in work. I digress.
It is abysmally sad, today’s world. The cost of living has taken precedence over familial connections and relationships. My brothers weren’t home last Christmas because it was too expensive to get everyone home. I haven’t even seen most of them in years, yet the cost of mobility takes priority over a proper family dinner.
Family dinner? We haven’t had that in years. How about sitting out in the cold together? That should count for something. Right? Or playing football; a four-aside isn’t a terrible idea, even though I don’t play anymore. Father stopped me from playing. He thought it would distract me, or maybe he thought it made me happier than our family did. But why would he want to take away what made me happy? Does that make sense? Do parents sit and think, “Oh, I should really make this child’s life miserable”?
I can’t think that. Am I allowed to think that of my parents? They gave birth to me. They should be thrilled to have me. Every parent is expected to be thrilled to have a child. I mean, parents who got married. Jesus! Well, parents who didn’t but had children under the right circumstances. Now, I wonder if only marriage makes for the “right circumstances.” Anyway, I can’t think that way about them. Besides, I will be a parent someday; can’t have my child thinking I don’t want them to be happy. This is not some rant about family stress.
Anyway, just know that my family would die for me but would die before I had certain things.
I remember one of my brothers loved ping-pong. I would go through the torture of humiliation just to be with them if that’s what it would take. You think about it all, and it really does beg the question: is it worth it all, the sacrifice? Perhaps, like proper gentlemen, we’re planting trees whose shade we would not enjoy. Nevertheless, how would our children become friends when we fail to create the room?
I have no answer. Maybe you do, and I truly hope you do.
Five.
