I.
He was born on a spring day to a man and a woman. He lived in a certain town and graduated high school and then college, excelling at his studies. He met and fell in love with his college sweetheart. They were married one day in summer. They spent some number of wonderful years together. He was a devoted husband and father, then a doting grandfather. He had a fulfilling career and enjoyed a hobby. He was a respected member of his church and community. He entered into eternal life one day in winter, surrounded by friends and family who loved him. He was a child of God.
II.
He was born on a Tuesday in March, during a time of hardship and self-reliance, which gave him character, a steely work ethic, an authenticity. He played in the woods with his beloved brother and tormented his pigtailed sister. His mother was all softness and comfort, his father strength and uprightness. His grandparents lived on the floor above and spoke little English. His childhood was reading The Hardy Boys in the attic, neighborhood misadventures with friends, violin lessons, catching frogs in the creek, church on Sundays, camping with his fellow Boy Scouts. His family’s devotion and his tight-knit immigrant community built a man of unwavering confidence. His Slavic genes bequeathed him a tendency to melancholy.
He missed the draft by two years; by the time he came of age, the war had ended. He married young and launched enthusiastically into a career in history and university education after years of intense study. He achieved a rare level of brilliance in his field and wrote and published impressively. He excelled at most everything he endeavored. Throughout his life, he attracted a following of students who admired and adored him. He touched the lives and inspired the minds of many.
In his early years, the children kept coming. He and his wife, whom he barely knew, were strangers passing in the kitchen. Amidst the noise and chaos of home, the screeching babies and dirty dishes, he found quiet corners to scribble poetry and play violin, which renewed him. He worked constantly, and to avoid his family spent his few remaining hours cultivating his garden. Sometimes his favorite daughter trailed him like an ardent puppy. There were always projects—the pond, the tool shed, the woodshop, the orchard. He believed he was giving his children a decent childhood, although he often felt more fondness for his dog than his raucous and petulant sons. He ignored his wife’s alcoholism.
He fell in love many times with his students. He cheated on his wife twice, regretting the first time but not the second. He attended mass and prayed for forgiveness. At the peak of his career, he left his wife, who had become sad and drunk and fat, for a student twenty years his junior. She was charming and buxom, strong-willed and opinionated, his wife’s opposite. His children had become angry teenagers who quickly fled the house. They rarely called or visited unless they needed money. His young wife fulfilled him deeply, and they built a handsome home together, a garden with hens. His university honored him with a prestigious award at the culmination of his career.
Once he retired, begrudgingly, his life became thinner and smaller. His arthritis made playing the violin painful, the plants he cultivated withered, his poems left unfinished. His children disliked each other and fought viciously between themselves. Two of them stopped speaking to him. He rarely remembered the names of his grandchildren. Regrets accumulated and he faded from his students’ thoughts. He felt anxious when his wife left him alone in the house.
His memory declined; he became a shadow of himself. His wife drove him to church every morning where he prayed more urgently, but never for his true sins. He spent his last days sitting in his armchair and watching the birds, feeling confused, blank, drained. He died on a Saturday in February. Two of his children were absent at his funeral. His wives and one daughter mourned him. His books gathered dust on a shelf.
He was a child of God.
