And there's the reason why, Joseph with Baby Joseph, on the Riverwalk, that day of days
I have always lived on dreams and hope, and far more often than not, professionally, creatively, both have served me well. Would that I could say the same about my personal life. Even though hopes and dreams also fueled and guided its course through the same five decades, failures of every kind, with their requisite pain and misery--to me, surely, but to way too many innocent people around me--predominated. That has not changed. I am sorry to say.
Late last month, I embarked on a trip and a mission of love, discovery and family reclamation that I can truly say I believed would be the highwater mark of my private life to date. The joyful, all but obsessed planning and anticipation, which occupied months of my time, was for me unprecedented. Never had I worked so hard, and hoped and dreamt so much upon and about a trip. It was tightly planned to be a week's visitto the States; New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, to be precise. Home.
I was going to meet my first grandchild, Joseph Allen Bosco, and to introduce a newer, better part of me to people I thought still loved me as only blood kin can. For almost four days it was a sublime dream coming true. Then the floor fell away and the ceiling disappeared. Every goddamn demon in the Ocean Springs, Mississippi, Boscos' past came out of the woodwork, rapacious fangs ripping, spitting and hoarding with abandon. The bites sinking to the bone. It hurt. Like hell. It always has.
So what? That's who we are and have been for a very long time. The loss in the States was beyond normal measurement; but the loss when we returned to Beijing was infinite. Goddamn it! Why?
Say, what?
Yep, that's the linear skinny of it. I can't tell the story--to protect the guilty and the innocent. Most certainly not myself. When you hit rock-bottom, everything else is up.
But we did have a transcendent experience with he whom I on pure faith believe will be the best Joseph A. Bosco of a lengthy line.
Yes! That's me, the old dude, with Joseph Allen Bosco! And then there is the wonderful moment of Baby Joseph and his so very special dad--my son, my grandfather's namesake--at the New Orleans Riverwalk, on perhaps the last day of pure happiness I will know for quite some time. Shhh, he's sleeping. But what a day! Our visit with Baby Joseph, Joseph and Michelle (my amazingly talented, loving daughter-in-law) was worth every price, both metaphysically and in RMB/U.S Dollar.
By the way, if I owe you an e-mail, or if you have come here looking for some words about O. J. Simpson, Bill Wasz or Bill Pavelic (and his forthcoming book), have patience with me. My innards burned and then melt into nothingness for a spell--yes, too long of a spell--but, I'm out now, lookin' for daylight! It must be there. It's always been before.
