September 2006: Remembering Joy (cont.)

Even when they must go months without any contact?

And what about Peter as a parent, his own three boys ricocheting through their lives, bereft?
Nonetheless, we carried away the gift of those words: “Parents are good.”

Our son says so, our only son, who is dying.

A friend sends a poem every week to those of us on her e-mail list, and some time ago she sent “A Quiet Joy” by Yehuda Armichai. The last lines are these:

And late in life I discovered
a quiet joy
like a serious disease that’s discovered too late:
just a little time left now for quiet joy.

Those lines are taped to the side of my printer, next to where I sit at my work. Day after day I read them.

“Just a little time left now for quiet joy.”
“Just a little time . . .”