Going From Two To Five To Two Gives Rise To Reflection

In the beginning, there was man and woman, and it was good.

Man and woman became one, lived in a house and divided up the chores. It was quiet and it was good.

Man and woman begat three sons, and it was very noisy, but it was also very good. With the children, came even more chores, more laundry, more dishes, more driving for man and woman, and that wasn’t so good.

By the sweat of their brows, man and woman provided bread for the growing children and nourishment for their souls. Thorns and thistles and noxious weeds invaded the yard and dust balls collected under beds, but still everyone was happy and it was good.

As the children waxed strong in body and spirit, they began removing the weeds, mowing the grass and vacuuming the dust balls. They began doing dishes and helping with meal preparation. Man and woman said, “This is very good.”

Then animals started arriving, two by two. Dogs, cats, chickens, pigs, rabbits, goldfish, parakeets. By still more sweat of their brows, man and woman bought animal feed and the children did the feeding, watering, pen cleaning and egg gathering. Man and woman said, “This is good.”

In time, the birds, cats, fish, parakeets and rabbits died or otherwise disappeared, which no one thought was good. The chickens and pigs died, too, and were eaten. Man and woman thought they were very, very good, but the children were sorely displeased.

The children became teenagers and began driving themselves around, which each thought was very, very good, while man and woman were not so sure. The teenagers got cars and played sports and were gone a lot, but still they did their chores, which man and woman thought was good.

Man taught teenagers how to work on engines and how to detail cars and trucks, which was good for man because teenagers worked on his engines and detailed his trucks.

But one by one, the sons left home, which each thought was very good, but man and woman are not so sure.

All’s quiet once again on the home front and man, and woman are once again alone. That is good and bad.

Where once there were five people to do home work, now there are only two, and while that means fewer dishes to do, less food to prepare, less money spent on groceries and fuel, fewer clothes to buy and wash, man and woman are finding out that that is not all good.

For it is an older man and woman now who must mow the grass, pull the weeds, till the soil around the fruit trees, feed and brush the dog, clean the pool, vacuum the carpet and dust balls, scour the bathrooms, do the dishes and wash the cars.

It is an older man and woman who must run their own errands to the market, the cleaners, the drugstore, the post office.

It is an older man and woman who must figure out how to work the VCR, how to download the computer, load the compact disc player in the pickup, reset the digital clocks, the pool sweep and automatic sprinklers, maintain the portable and cellular phones and think up messages for the answering machine.

It is an older man and woman who are trying to figure out what all of this means.

They sit now looking at each other and say, “This is good?”