Improbable siblings

I walked yesterday on the beach with my three sons, aged 39, 34 and 31. The youngest, so tarnished by the sun, he claimed he was almost browner than the eldest, who is African. The youngest is aboriginal - Canadian Mistawasis Cree from the Orkney clearances, a child with fetal alcohol effects who is unable to care for himself in middle class ways. His hair was long and tangled, though clean - since he had showered and changed at our house, a necessary procedure when he arrives - usually unannounced. He looked like a lion. The middle son has married a dancer from the Royal Winnipeg ballet. They will perform in Israel next summer - and we will go by any and all possible means. He is a violinist with the Winnipeg Symphony and Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.

We walked with our grand-dog Callie, a fine and well-behaved German shepherd. The middle child talked to me later of the ferocious look of his younger brother, as fearful looking as any of the street-people of Winnipeg, he said. Yet he is just a brain-damaged individual. He might have been a great warrior, but here he is, homeless like Jesus, not middle or upper class, like Job.

Callie shepherded us instinctually. Our invisible Shepherd posed his unanswerable questions - his response to the impossible image of an 'African', an 'Indian', and a 'European' trio of brothers walking on the beach, all born in Canada, all raised by Church and TV during the infancy of video games.

I wish I had had the camera.