An Introduction of Their New Friend to My Parents

Dear Mom and Dad,

You’ve always been kind, loving, and forgiving parents. I expect that in the near and distant future you will still be kind, loving, and forgiving, and still my parents.

Remember D, the bass player in my college bluegrass band? He played an upright bass that, if I remember correctly, cost many thousands of dollars, much more than your lovely red pickup truck cost you.

Well, one day, D was carrying his bass and he accidently bumped it into a stone or bench or flying piece of firewood or something, and at our next practice, he said sheepishly, “I have a new friend,” and he showed us his bass’s dent.

Now, he wouldn’t have needed to make the introduction with such sheepishness, since we were a kind, loving, and forgiving group of young men, albeit not his parents. Besides, it was his bass, not ours. But how much more unnecessary would have been his sheepishness had we been his dear family, especially family commonly infatuated with cutting, splitting, and throwing firewood!

Looking back, I recall that memory of D’s “new friend” with a certain fondness, knowing how way leads on to way (Frost) yet how firewood keeps us toasty in the cold, and knowing too how it is human imperfection which binds all of imperfect humanity to one another and requires a certain willingness to accept imperfection in fellow humanity to foster ties of friendship and, even more so, family.

And so, dear parents, your new friend, sheltered from the rain and future flying firewood by our good friend Mr. Duct Tape:

Love,
Your son