Filial

Adj., late 14c., from late Latin 
filialis, of a son or daughter, from 
Latin filius, son; filia, daughter; whether
you have only one or twelve of them, steps
coming down from the oldest to the youngest,
barely a year's difference between each.
There used to be a time when it was
considered normal to leave younger
children in the care of siblings really 
not much older than them. Picture
a five year old, nose running, with a three 
year old baby on her hip. Filial, from 
a suffixed form of the root to be, exist, 
grow; to be told, for example, that you 
wouldn't be here if not for your parents,
which sometimes reaps a reply like I
didn't ask to be born. Is the proper
follow-up a slap and a shove 
out the door? But who asks for anything 
like that? And who asks to be thrown 
into the role of provider, care-giver, 
picker-upper, cheerleader, moral 
compass, first teacher, first 
anything just because the lights 
were bright or dim one night or 
the wine went to your head and you 
gave in to that unfamiliar weakness 
in the knees, desire to even just once 
kiss and be kissed, never mind 
that it's hardly original to want 
to be wanted and filled. Filial, 
meaning assimilated from felios, 
originally a suckling; to suck, suckle; 
which word makes you think unaccountably 
of a pig pulled off its mother's teat 
to be turned on a spit. It is in hindsight,
therefore, that we attain perfect 
vision: the claims we lay upon each 
other are forged in words called vows 
or lessons, conditions. Marry, don't
marry. Stay, don't go, come back.
Divorce me, absolve me, abandon
me— Which is to say one thing depends 
on another in the same way we like 
to believe what's good for one  
should always be good for the other.