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Sunday, Sept. 21, 2003 - 2:56 p.m. THE GREAT PUMPKIN I remember that around every Halloween when I was growing up, that famous Charlie Brown special would always come on. As the story goes, Linus would go to the pumpkin patch and await the coming of the Great Pumpkin who supposedly brought presents to children every Halloween. Of course, the Great Pumpkin never came. Over the course of my adulthood, I have half-heard several interesting analyses of what the Great Pumpkin really symbolized. I will offer yet another. I was reminded of the Great Pumpkin first because we are nearing Halloween and I passed all the decorations in the drug store, and second, because of my upcoming twenty-seventh birthday this coming Saturday, my "Golden Birthday" on the twenty-seventh of the month. It will be unlike the "Golden Birthday" of my Cajun brother-in-law several years ago. My sister was engaged to him at the time, and she wanted this birthday to be special. So she threw on a Cajun pig roast, a "Couchon du Lait," at my parents' house. She invited all his friends, family, his co-workers and her co-workers and many people came. What I remember distinctly about the party was that it occurred shortly after Halloween and we had a bunch of pumpkins lying around the house. There is an old dying oak tree that my dad refuses to cut down growing in my parents back yard where most of the party occurred. At the base of it, huge holes line the roots which make the tree very unsightly. To cover it up, my dad had us rake all of the fallen leaves into the holes to fill them and hide the decay. My sister then took all the pumpkins and piled them on top of the leaves as a sort of fall decoration. Whereas my brother-in-law's birthday was a big production, mine will be nothing like it. No one will be roasting pigs for me. I do not have a girlfriend. I do not really have anyone I can speak of that is really what I would consider a close friend. I hope my roommate can become one, but my friendship with him is still developing from what once barely existed. All I have is my parents. They are probably the only ones with whom I will share my birthday. I love my parents. However, most young people in my generation would probably hate them. They are very old-fashioned and conservative. They were as protective as all hell of me when I grew up. They see the world very much like the prebaby-boom generation they came from. But they are the only ones that have ever cared to look out for me when things have gone awry in my life. When I was first diagnosed in Houston, I called my dad, and he dropped everything and drove to Houston to come see me. When I was too blitzed to work because of the loony psychiatrists that were overmedicating me, my parents took care of me. In short, when my life was at its worst, they were the only true friends I had. I cannot imagine ever finding friends like these, not for the rest of my life. But I cannot expect such things from mere friends. My parents' love for me is unconditional. That is exactly the type of love I expect from a woman that is supposed to love me. However, I have little faith that I can find such a woman in today's world. Beyond certain biological elements, I do not know what draws a man and woman together into a state of unconditional love. I would tend to think that it is the power of romance, but some people have even argued that romance is nothing but a cultural illusion. For instance, in India, marraiges are pre-arranged, and sex for them is, well, just part of reproduction. Whereas here you marry the one you love, there you love the one you marry. Love to them is a mere concept of practicality that develops in raising a family. I see the friends that people have and the friends that I lack, and I begin to feel quite uncomfortable and lonely. I almost laugh at it. I should have tons of friends. In one sense, I can blame myself for my predicament. In another sense, I am nothing but a helpless victim of circumstance and an insidious illness. I will visit my parents on my birthday and enjoy my time with them. If the world were to end tomorrow, they would be the ones I would spend my final time with. After the my brother-in-law's party, the pumpkins stayed atop the pile of leaves at the base of the oak tree. Slowly, one by one, each turned black, decayed and disappeared. All except for one. This one pumpkin sat there bright and orange for about six more months, all the way through winter. When it finally decayed, a big bush of a pumpkin patch grew in its wake. Unfortunately, because of where it was planted, the patch could not survive. However, I did feel a since of encouragement from that final pumpkin's resolve. I guess if logic prevails, if people can stay married for fifty plus years, unconditional love can in fact be somehow forged between a man and a woman. It just seems so far off and unreal to me right now because I have yet to be in any serious relationship. It is just a major concern to me because I have absolutely no experience in a serious relationship, and these are much harder to find than dates. So as far as I am concerned, at this point I am still sitting in a pumpkin patch waiting for something that I do not believe really exists. However, like Linus or that resolute pumpkin, I will sit here anyway, waiting and waiting, probably for a long time, possibly until the day I die. |