More From The Archives: Another Introduction

Denouement.

That's a fancy French word for untangling, and in literature it applies to the point of the story where everything turns towards the final resolutions.

In most stories, we might expect this to happen on the final pages or in the final chapter, but in a good story you might start to see this even from the beginning.  I like the way John Ylvisaker puts it in his song, Borning Cry, which begins:

I was there to hear your borning cry.
I'll be there when you grow old.
I was there the day you were baptized
To see your life unfold.

Unfolding: Untangling: Denouement

I thought of this about four years ago when my daughter crossed the stage for her eighth grade graduation. And I'll be thinking of it all over again this June as she graduates from high school, and I have had, and will have, the same thoughts at my son's graduations.

As parents, we'd like to think that we have so much to do with the plots of our children's lives, but we really don't, and when it comes down to it, we are just fortunate - blessed - to be in the audience, cheering them on.