Luke: “Master Yoda… is Darth Vader my father?”
Yoda: “Rest I need. Yes. Rest.”
Luke: “Yoda, I must know.”
Yoda: “Your father he is.” [pause] ”Told you, did he?”
Luke: “Yes.”
Yoda: “Unexpected this is. And unfortunate.”
Luke: “Unfortunate that I know the truth?”
Yoda: “No! Unfortunate that you rushed to face him… that incomplete was your training. That… not ready for the burden were you.”
Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
Will he ever be ready for the burden? Is anyone ever ready for the burden before he or she is thrust out upon the world at the tender age of 16, 18, 22, 25, 30 or whenever the real burdens of life and survival and staking our own path and claiming our own way arrive at our emotional door? I try to keep my head in the here and now, as a good Jedi should, but sometimes my fears wander off into that dark underbrush of the future and I wonder.
- I wonder if I’m focusing on the right things to help him along his path.
- I wonder if I’m too concerned about things that won’t matter at all.
- I wonder if I’m not concerned enough about the things that will.
- I wonder if he’ll look back on our time together and wish we had done things differently.
- I wonder if he’ll look back and decide that he wouldn’t have had our lives any other way.
- I wonder what he’ll do with the decades before him.
- I wonder who he will decide to share his life with.
- I wonder if I’ll see it coming when he does decide.
The burden, the happy burden, of raising the future generation of Jedi is upon us. I wonder if I’ll ever feel ready.
