My sons are moving along a similar path of life even though they'd probably dispute their lives were so much like ours.
They compare, compete and go out to ensure the family unit not only survives but thrives.
Their wives handle the homefront and participate in the business world while working hard and each of them have to work to find a small slice of life to set aside for themselves.
Where are they all running so hard to reach? What's their destination and when do they plan to "arrive"?
The women no longer have the choices they had in their early twenties when their worlds were so open, so many possibilities and so many decisions.
They conform to the mold of being part of a family; wife and mother head their list of responsibilities just as they did for me.
The men have "settled in" to being the "bread winner". The oldest is home, as he says, every night and the younger often finds himself travelling the world.
Both have adapted and adopted and created "the life" they want, they value and they recognize as being "in the best interests" of their family and its members.
Neither lifestyle is right and neither is wrong.
We gave them skillsets they've carried and neither truly recognizes as being "life and living" through our practices and beliefs.
Interestingly neither really fully recognizes the real gifts we gave them. Perhaps like so many others, they'll recognize them when we're both gone and just a memory, fading with each passing day.
Those who see, those who understand and those who verbally recognize often and sincerely, the struggles, the challenges, the focuses and the benefits a family dedicated to one another, all stages and ages of life, all ends of the cord of life stretched to include other family and friends, theirs is a life of true value.
We set the pace of the race and the boys and daughter are taking the hand off and entering the field moving forward, upward and onward as their lives pass through years and decades where they too wonder how quickly time passes.
The song is the same while the meter and the measure often vary.
We sing the song of life through generations.
