Shadow People – When the Lineage Merges and Generations Fade. It’s rather easy to look back, to be the receiver and say that “she contributed this, he offered that.” And then children emerge, and very soon you can sense it all begin to flow away, of everything beginning to pass.
When small, there’s a sense of “mine” in one’s children — “my son, my daughter.” But this is a terrible illusion.
In fact, we are theirs.
As Persian Poet Khalil Gibran said in his remarkable poem, “On Children,”
“…their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.” https://poets.org/poem/children-1
But a downstream lineage requires an injection – a partner, a husband, a wife to be inserted into this stream so it can flow onward. And right there begins the obsolescence. Suddenly it’s apparent that you no longer matter quite so much, even it takes time for this to sink in,
that you’re rapidly becoming little more than an old story
someone your child might recall years from now
and, if you’ve been very fortunate,
smile.
And while this is natural, it does bring with it the opportunity to love in a completely different way. This is not the love born of biology, nor is it a love shaped from an accumulated lifetime of shared experiences.
This is a love born of learning, of tolerating (in both directions, of course,) of getting to know, of bumping against each other, of embracing, of creating new shared experiences, and ultimately, heaven willing, of standing together to support the launch of the next generation.
Lineage. True Lineage.
And Gratitude.

shadow people they begin as shadow people two-dimensional, replaceable appearing only for a moment then fading, leaving only a name a story to be laughed about over dinner translucent satellites in temporary orbit around this child you’ve birthed and fed, the one you’ve poured your life into, saw fall and stand again, then mature into the rich three-dimensional life you see before you who one day brings home another and suddenly you sense that this just might be “the one” the one that takes root in the rich soil of your son, the one he now turns to before you, the one who clearly holds all of his new secrets, the one who’s ear hears all of his dreams and though you try to be happy for him and for “them” you can already feel yourself beginning to thin, to lighten, to lift ever so slightly above the floor where they now stand together can feel yourself darkening and spreading up the long wall as the sun drops low in the sky stretching the day’s last shadows which even now are beginning to fade as day inevitably progresses into night
In case you missed it, here’s a link to the Sixth Lineage Poem – This Father’s Imperfect Love: https://oldbonesnewsnow.com/2022/03/01/this-fathers-imperfect-love-sixth-lineage-poem/
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Jeff,
Thank you. I love this poem. It’s so evocative.
I embrace the simple fact that all things rise and fall, are present and then absent. Whatever and whoever I am will change over time, fade, and a variation will rise. Thanks for this, lots to think about.