THE 'ROSEBUD' IN EVERY LIFE

Ever since Orson Wells uttered the shadowy word "Rosebud" in his 1942 classic "Citizen Kane," the world has come to know there is one in every life. Rich or poor, great or small, we all bestride our adult world carrying a precious small secret close to our heart. A forever distant image in which we can hide ourselves whenever adult life becomes too unbearable.

For Citizen Kane it was the small wooden sled he joyfully played with until it and his youth were abruptly snatched away. For others, a Christmas toy...a first-school-day pen set....a lilac bush in Mom's backyard...the fish you helped Dad haul in...the English teacher who wrote that special note of encouragement on your composition....the Bonnie or Johnny to whom you first gave your childhood love. Or maybe someone you didn't even know, but whose kindness forever captured the wonder of being valued by another. Like the bus driver who helped you while you self-consciously struggled aboard with all those holiday packages...the Good Humor Man who'd let you ring his summertime bells....the pool guard who snatched you from out of the deep end while shushing the thoughtless giggles from your buddies.

When the great English General Montcalm lay dying at the 18th C battle for Quebec, he recalled a childhood poem he had memorized. When Gandhi fasted for a nation, he held high the memory of his Mother's love for a small son. When we face our own fates, small shards of safe pasts often crackle through the circuitry of our brains. Evolution's way of protecting our survivability? Heaven's way of keeping us in touch with our innocence?

Philosophers and poets tend to ask such questions. Builders and bankers may not. Perhaps too many adults have mistaken St Paul's reference to "putting away the things of a child." Goethe nuanced Paul: "Life is the childhood of eternity." The days of our lives are an unbroken necklace of beads from womb to tomb. Pluck one out, and the necklace breaks.

Which is why Kane never quite forgot Rosebud. Nor wanted to.....