The next generation rarely appreciates what the previous brought forth. The torrent of business ideas that my father revealed but never carried out might sound brilliant if explained to my children, just like how I loved my grandfather’s endless chattering about things he heard on his short wave radio, talk that bored my father to tears.
None of my children are aware of any of my writing and they do not seem to have any curiosity about it either. Perhaps their children someday might discover it on some digital bookshelf and end up chiding my children for not showing it to them. A father can always dream.
It takes time and distance for the gentle, stirring parts of us to take full shape. Children have expectations of parents, but grandparents can purely be themselves, and grandchildren take from them no greater joy than the appreciation of things they loved best and spent a lifetime refining.