On Not Having Fathered Children

from a letter written by Gary Sorenson in April, 2000 -

I suppose you and I don't know what we want; that's why we don't have it!! Gauging from folks I meet, it ain't all that great anyway, anyway. It's those damn expectations - somebody gave 'em to us and I don't think we ever got rid of them.

Now, I think I notice them more than ever - I miss the 1.5 kids I didn't have and go to the window often to light a candle and wave a recently-ironed handkerchief at passers-by, hoping it may be the 1.5s returning for a visit with the ol' man and telling me about buying new boats and losing money on the stock market by paying attention to selected newsletters, and not telling me about their affairs with secretaries and other selected co-workers. I miss the goin'-to-the-church-as-an-elder concept, where I'm asked my opinion on matters of current events and church dogma and thanked heartily for my wonderful advice and council. I miss front lawns that other people mow for me and grass that I can complain about to someone else who caretakes.

I miss trips of great expectation at structured times of the year to places I know very well and have been to many, many times and where my name is a household word for the seven to ten days of my visit and then forgotten until the next reservation.

I miss the silliness of school and PTA conference's small chairs for big bodies with folded coats covering crossed-fingers as a recent college graduate plugs my child's name into a framework of sentences she has repeated 20 times before in the same evening with studied and measured gusto.

I miss being a part of a larger - hopefully - greater good and having such passion for it that I create a cause unstoppable.