Monday, September 2, 2019

Generosity

Lynn and Jack. I still can’t separate that in my mind (it would be literally etymologically incorrect). Lynn and Jack had a profound impact on my life. They changed my perceptions, my ambition, my very philosophy.

I don’t come from a close family. My mother used to brag that we were so independent from each other. She told me once how proud she was that we were all just four people who happened to share a roof. I wouldn’t know a cousin if I passed them on the street. I haven’t spoken to an aunt or uncle in 20 years. I once went 12 years without my father calling me. I love my brother, but I'm not sure I'd characterize us as friends. I have no nieces or nephews.

That’s where I came from.

When I met the Kearneys in my late 20s it absolutely turned my world view upside down, because the Kearneys, anchored by that etymological entity “LynnAndJack,” are a close family. This became my inspiration, and my model as I created a family from scratch. My children Nora and Julian may or may not be aware how much I used the example of the Kearneys to make us more than just four people under the same roof. I look at my kids’ closeness now with wonder and gratitude.

Lynn and Jack are why the Nelson Chins are all artists today. My own parents were artists who could not see how to be artists in this world, and turned their backs on it, to their unhappiness. So, like the idea of the close-knit family, I had no model for that until I met Lynn and Jack. When Wei and I would think, this is too hard, I would say, Lynn and Jack did it.

But the most amazing thing about this amazing family, is their confidence in each other, in those internal bonds, and how it gives them incredible emotional generosity, a generosity so encompassing that it spills over the edges, dripping onto people like me. Never, in almost 40 years, did I ever feel that one scintilla of the love that Lynn and Jack felt for me was ever anything but shared and amplified by Jill & Dan, and then by their own children. That there is no limit to the embrace, no boundary on love because of that generosity.

I am so honored that Lynn and Jack brought me into that magic circle. It made me a better person. I will miss them more than words can say, and I will carry their love with me forever.

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