On These Basic Questions Did They Bother to Ponder?

She emailed me this morning, obviously pained,

Here are some lines from what she complained:

“With my parents, not once did I have a discussion

About any sort of important existential question.

Food, clothes and parties they’d talk often about,

And sometimes, they’d furiously argue and shout.

Not once, I recall, did they deem it fit

To spare time and with me to sit

To reflect on issues of great existential import,

You know—questions of the most crucial sort,

Such as, ‘Who was it who made this Earth?’,

‘Why have we on this planet taken birth?’,

‘Who, really, is this being we call ‘I’?’,

‘Why is it that we must one day die?’,

And, ‘What happens when we from Earth depart:

Is it our final end, or do we get a fresh start?”

“Of my physical needs, they took quite good care,

To fault them much here just wouldn’t be fair.

Comforts they provided me that they could afford.

For all of this, may they be richly blessed by the Lord.

Materially, I must say, they did rather well provide,

But on life’s great questions they just didn’t guide.

On these basic questions I really wonder,

Did they themselves ever bother to ponder?”