Balsam
It is the biggest crap shoot there can ever be having children. I have often felt that had I known how my life with my children would be I would have given it a great more thought before jumping in the frying pan of having kids.
How true it is. It's all so unpredictable, so mysterious. You could be spun in a thousand and one different directions. I'll never know what the future would have held for me either, Narkissos, (sp) but your journey sounds as if you've found fulfillment in your walk as new father. My wife; I watch her struggle with her children, and how she so intricately loves each of them, regardless for what they've done, or not done for that matter. I watch how she labors with them.
Right or wrong, six ways to Sunday, your lovers and spouses can be here today, gone tomorrow, for various reasons, but the connection that comes from having children is an impregnible wall that can not be easily torn down. The blood is thicker than water scenario, can effectively only be fought on that front. The bonding between parent and child says a lot about our humanity. To experience it is a taste that can be savored, or just stomached.
Swalker, I feel for you as you endeavor to make the most of a complicated relationship, especially as it revolves around sons to fathers. I can know no more difficult an existence, that of fathers and how it is they relate to thier sons. I always had a feeling that were I ever to become a father, a daughter I could more efectively handle, as opposed to a son. They require such intricate programming that I know I would never be capable launching one sucessfully. Father and son histories of my own are so fraught with destructive energy that the blueprints I have would be an abysmal failure in the making.
I feel your bones, S
Art
