Carrying ON

Now is the time of year that my family--aunts, uncles, cousins, parents--take great pride in creating the family meals that have passed down from generation to generation. Chicken and Dumplings (ever so thin and wonderful noodles relaxing in a succulant chicken broth), cheesy potatoes, cornbread dressing, 7 layer salad, chocolate pie so sweet you want to slap it. Mmm. That's holiday eating at it's best.

What interests me is that the pact that The Boy and I have means there will be no generation to pass down our holiday traditions, recipes and unique points of view. Both our family names and our family--a least the discreet family made up so sweetly of him and me--will end when we do.

On some level, this seems spectacularly depressing. What we have together is so great, so perfect, so loving and so long-lasting that it seems a shame not to enable another being to join us in expanding our duo--exanding the love and the happiness.

But honestly, people, that's not the part that really gets to me. What gets to me is a base and strident concern about what will happen to us in old age? Who will take care of us? In essence, who will be around to lovingly and carefully wipe my butt?

I know that seems crass. But think about it. Children are the ones these days who are most often called upon to care for their parents private needs. I have watched both of my parents care for their ailing parents and do unspeakable acts of love because no one else was around and it had to be done. Sure, there's often a "home" to put the elderly in. With our saving plan, The Boy and I should have enough resources to see us to the end. But who will make sure we get there, that we have thoughtful and caring providers. Will they put us in front of a tv all day and change our Depends just once? (This one seems like revenge for all those parents out there who use the tv as babysitter). Who will visit at holidays? Who will cry when we take our last breath and make stupid requests to the undertaker--out of pure, raw love (We made the undertaker put panties on my grandmother when he prepared her for burial. Nice pretty, lacy frilly ones. We felt some guilt that she probably never had any in her life, and wanted her to have them in death.)

If we don't have kids, when we die, who will care? And who will pass on the stories of our lives?

If you aren't planning to have kids, do you therefore need to do more to be a good and caring person to have a longlasting impact on the world--some measure of immortality and maybe someone out there who cares that you stepped on the earth? Somehow (and this seems blasphemous) I just don't think a great recipe for chicken and dumplings is enough.