Like His Father, My Son

    I want to share with you something that happened a few days ago, that I had wanted to write about, but this got pushed aside by “war” blogging.

    One of my married sons called me; I suspect to be sure that I wasn’t freaking out from the rocket attacks. After talking a few minutes about shelters, politics, and the like, he gave a little laugh and said “Mom, you won’t believe what my son did yesterday. He did something fitting for me once to have done. He lit a fire.”

     This son as a child had an absolute fascination with conflagrations. He was an excellent student, a very well-adjusted kid… but he LOVED looking at flames.     As an example:

      I used to have a friend who came to visit me nearly every Friday evening, after the Sabbath evening meal. Once we were sitting in the kitchen, sipping some tea, and I mentioned that I was a bit concerned about my son and his over-enthusiasm with anything that was lit. She was “poo-pooing” me, until my “pyromaniac” son entered the kitchen. At that moment, the lit fire on the stove (under the cholent pot) happened to let off a few extra flickers. My offspring’s immediate reaction to the spark was to start singing a bon-fire song, “Bar Yochai”.   “Hmmm…. I see what you mean” my friend admitted.

    Anyway, amazingly enough, my son grew up to be an exceptional fellow,  and today is not, to the best of my knowledge, lighting fires in the Jerusalem forest or committing any acts of arson.

    So returning to the phone call of a few days ago….. it seems that my grandson lit an area full of thorns, causing a fire. Luckily it was in a place where the flames could not cause much real harm, and it was extinguished fairly quickly.  My dear son was pondering about how to handle the situation……

    I hate to admit it, but as long as things are kept under control, and dealt with, there is a certain amount of grandmotherly pleasure when one of our grandkids pulls a stunt that their parents used to do (or easily could have done). The feeling of “Gee, now my kid will realize what I put up with, with him….” is, I think, a hope that our grown children will realize that our role as parents was not that easy. It’s almost a prayer that they will forgive us for any lapses or mistakes that we made, as they comprehend just how easy it is to not be a perfect parent.