Counting by sevens

Responding to the recommendation of a friend, Jen and I had started watching our way through the "Seven up" series on DVD-- if you don't know it, it started in 1964 with a film of interviews with a number of British seven year olds from a range of backgrounds, asking them about their views on life. Since then it's followed them up at intervals of seven years, the last film being "49 up" in 2006. A short while before Jen's death we'd watched "35 up", so the other week I borrowed "42 up" and "49 up".

The poignancy of "42 up" is that it matches my age, and there are frequent reflections on grief, on ambitions fufilled and unfulfilled, a sense of being at the crossroads. Suzie, who we first see as a girl from a privileged background, seems very sceptical about marriage and family at 21, but by 42 is in a stable and happy marriage with three children. She comments

the one thing every parent dreads is not living long enough to see their children into adulthood

That echoes Jen's great sadness about not seeing her boys grow up. I remember an early meeting with our oncologist, when Jen, in her forthright way, said that she wanted four or five years, so she could see Primus through high school and Secundus through primary school. Both I and our oncologist laughed, and of course Jen knew the odds were very long, but she still wanted to hope it might be possible. We both shared the sense that the unwritten contract of parenthood commits you to being alive until your children are independent.

The other focus for us in the films was thinking about our own children -- observing Secundus at seven, and wondering if we could now see the elements of his future life. I think the films overdid the old quote about "give me a child at age seven, and i will give you the man". With many of the seven year olds in the first film, what comes out is more the set of expectations and assumptions within which they live, probably due mainly to their parents (whom we don't see at this stage). Of course there are startling glimpses of their personalities that foreshadow later events, but at the time one doesn't know which characteristics are enduring. Some of the children do stick with the "expected" trajectory of their lives, especially some of the more privileged cohort. In another way you do hope as parent that all the hard work in those early years will translate into a mature and independent person as they grow up. I did give a start when I realised that Jen identified me with that most privileged group, whereas I saw them as being in a different league. I did sympathise with the opinion from a couple of boys that even with apparent privilege, actual success in an academic sense still depended on much hard work.

But there were also the unexpected ones. Neil Hughes, who at seven was a bright and engaging child, eventually has a lot of problems with mental illness and accompanying homelessness. Yet he does return to Christian faith, and finds a useful role for himself in local council politics. So now I think of our boys (or is that my boys?) - both articulate and talented, with many possibilities still apparently open before them. Did Jen get to see in their personalities their future? ("if you can look into the seeds of time, and say which will grow and which will not, speak then to me"). Where will they be in seven years, or fourteen years, or twenty one years? Will Jen's death change the whole direction of their lives? Unlike our passivity in observing the films, here I have a choice to help them as best I can to become the fine adults that they can be. If you, gentle reader, are among our friends, then the task falls to you as well, in whatever small way that you can contribute. This is the labour of love that Jen, prevented by death, has left unfinished.