Cat's Cradle

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man on the moon.
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when,
But we'll get together then.
You know we'll have a good time then."

-------harry chapin

Somewhere along the way Aaron and Patrick picked up on this lyrics when they were little boys. A way to give dad a good natured ribbing when they wanted me to participate in one thing or another when I'd rather loaf.

"Dad, wanna build a soap box derby car to ride down the hill?"
"A Dad gets to nap in a hammock on Sunday afternoon."
"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon...."

My turn eventually came to sing the later verse to them.
"When you coming home son?" "I don't know when...."

Kurt Vonnegut wrote the classic Cat's Cradle in 1963. Aaron was a reader of Vonnegut's books. Patrick bought the copy we have in our house. I read the book this week. Characters in Vonnegut stories are typically defined by peculiar habits or appearance. In the end of these books of humorous fiction an odd character, representing something clearly American, will say something deep and meaningful about our insanity. "Ambassador Minton", delivered the deep thought in Cat's Cradle.

The scene has the Ambassador to San Lorenzo preparing to toss a wreath into the sea to honor the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy. "We are gathered here friends to honor the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy, children dead, all dead, all murdered in war. It is customary on days like this to call such lost children men. I am unable to call them men for this simple reason: that in the same war in which the Hundred Martyrs to Democracy died, my own son died."

"My soul insists that I mourn not a man but a child."

"I do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. To the everlasting honor and our everlasting shame, they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays."

"But they are murdered children all the same."

"And I propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects..., that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind."

On another day when I miss my son, I pause to think of the fathers and mothers who miss their children sacrificed in stupidity and viciousness by insanity. The media shows us their photos in their uniforms. The faces of these souls, these men/women who are children to their parents, are real. I'm sorry these children are dead on this beautiful winter evening.