A Proustian moment - not

Mary and Ian Carter dropped in yesterday morning. Mary is the younger daughter of one of my father's classmates in the Adelaide medical school, and Ian graduated from the Adelaide medical school a year or two after me, spent his career working for WHO. Our conversation yesterday was about grandchildren. Perforce they lead a peripatetic life because their children's families are scattered about the world: Queensland, Western Australia, England, and Quebec, in Chelsea, just across the river from Ottawa; so each year they roam the world keeping up to date on the progress of them all. I'm glad my offspring are near and I'm spared these long haul flights, which get exponentially more exhausting as one ages. Yesterday's visit was too brief to talk about anything else other than grandchildren. I'd have enjoyed going in search of lost time with Proustian reminiscences about Adelaide, getting a different perspective from my brother's. Perhaps it's as well we didn't go there. We would probably have found, as Proust remarks towards the end of A la recherche du temps perdu, the sad answer to the question, "Where are they now?" The answer of course is "Dead. All dead." Even so, I would have welcomed a longer visit and a bit more opportunity for conversation about other matters of mutual interest besides grandchildren.