Tuesday, September 20, 2022 Father and Son

I just finished reading the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It’s a post-apocalyptic story, not my favorite kind of story. The main characters, a father and son, are never named, nor described. There’s been some sort of world-wide catastrophe and this father and son are in what’s left of the United States, trying to make their way further south and toward the ocean where the father hopes to find others like them, the “good guys.” The father is fiercely protective of his son and they have to be constantly on their guard so they don’t fall prey to roving bands of savage people who will do anything to find food in this ashy, fruitless world – even to the point of cannibalism. I tell you, it’s not a pretty story.

But this father-son relationship left an imprint on my mind. In the midst of this bleak and harsh existence, they cling to hope, they “carry the fire.” The father knows he is dying and must trust to whatever goodness there is left, either in heaven or on earth, to take care of his son when he is gone. He continually imbues his son with hope, even when things look hopeless.

It’s hard to forget a story like that. We were camping recently at Father Hennepin State Park and sometime before sunset a father and son came and sat on a bench overlooking the lake. All I could see was their silhouettes and the image brought back to memory that father and son of the book. They stayed there for an hour or more, just sitting companionably together. It was so sweet and poignant a sight for me. If I ever read that book again (a big “if”), that’s the image I’ll have in my mind.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, when the blog posts of this world are in silhouette against the sunrise, carrying the fire.