I don’t see my Aunt Ann, who lives in Delray Beach, FL, nearly enough, but I got to have lunch with her on her home turf last week, at a classic New York-style deli called 3G’s. The meal had two epic moments. The first was the arrival of my lunch entrée, aptly named The Brisket Bomb (brisket topped with potato latkes, fried onions, and mushrooms). The other was a brief comment made by my 86-year-old aunt, a parenting truth I’d do well to keep reminding myself of.
I’m sure you won’t let brevity belie the depth of the tragedy: In the early ‘50s, my Aunt Ann and Uncle Herb were in the thick of the parenting life, raising my two cousins, one who was four, the other five months, when they got into a calamitous car accident in which my uncle died. It might seem ridiculous to extrapolate from the death of their father to my elder cousin’s adult life as a nice but essentially disengaged religious hermit, but most of us in the family make the connection.
Which brings me to lunch in Delray. That was great. In addition to enjoying The Brisket Bomb, my aunt and I spent much of our time laughing over the antics of my own children (ages 12 and 8). But when I got a little more serious, describing their personalities and relating the kinds of personal challenges they’ve faced so far in their young lives—that’s when my aunt dropped her own little bomb.
“You never know,” she said. “You never know.”
She didn’t really say it to impress the thought on me. It felt like more of a reflection on the ongoing difficulties of her eldest son. Maybe she even had a flashback to when my second cousin was a baby.
When I think of how much we plan and plan, and try to stack the deck in support of our kids, with all sorts of extracurriculars and extra love and extra worry, in the hope that it will all lead them to road of personal and professional success, I know it’s time for a humility makeover.
The woman who knows better reminded me that you never know. The next time I pretend to know in these pages, feel free to kick me. Meanwhile, when I think of my aunt, I’ll also think of her incredible resilience…something else to share with my kids (even though you never know).
–Eric Messinger
