Remember back when we used to write to one another? We even used cursive as we were taught. Paid attention to proper grammar. Like that. We wrote complete sentences and dared not try substituting single vowels for words.
We tended to think more and deeply because we refused to allow life’s pace to become a headlong rush toward tomorrow. We sat over A&W sharing fries and talked about cabbages and kings. We had time for each other, back when, though we scarce took advantage of it. We were friends, never knowing how profound a thing those friendships would become once we all began approaching the half-century mark since graduating together.
Yesterday an old friend exhibited one of those ‘deeply’ thoughts in sharing the comment, “. . . nurture needed to mend this ragged world.”
nurture is a noun meaning the process of caring for and encouraging the growth or development of someone or something.
Yes, enduring friend. Needed indeed, and urgently. Talk is cheap. Politics is stuffed with it. The meme says, “Ignore what they say; instead, watch what they do.”
The day’s news is full of the antithesis of nurture. Having reached nominal adulthood never having seen it, following generations find ‘nurture’ meaningless. Nurture takes time. Nurture calls for examples.
It’s up to us, the Boys and Girls of Back When, to live out nurture of our town and nation – and its people, especially the younger ones. This ragged world is a big place. To nurture where we are and send the nurtured forth into it seems the best strategy, yet it takes time.
Do you suppose we’d best get started?
Thank you, old friend, for your thoughtful prompt. You know who you are.
© D. Dean Boone, September 2016