Wyn Drabble: The future has turned out well

In his future dreamworld, I'm sure there would have been no Justin Bieber. The other day my phone and Mrs D's phone buzzed almost simultaneously. It was son number two texting to remind us both of something he had enjoyed his younger brother saying when he was very young.

I believe there must be a delightfully sound family bond going when such a trivial little memory can spark spontaneous communication.

So what had son number three said all those years ago? He had said, and I remember it well, "I can't wait till the future."

Well, his waiting is over. All our boys are now in their twenties and all are living in "the future".

I'm not sure, though, that the future is quite the one son three was thinking of all those years ago.

He wouldn't have known, for example, what a PhD is. Nor that his older brother would have one and be working as an engineer.

He wouldn't have known that his second brother would be a talented musician, touring the country with his band and living his musical dream.

And he wouldn't have imagined the talents he himself would possess in abundance, not the least of which is a sharp satirical eye which he can express in word, picture and music.

In his future dreamworld, I'm sure there would have been no Justin Bieber. That would have been impossible to imagine from his "present" where the greatest heroes were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Somewhere in Mrs D's efficient filing system, the replica Ninja Turtle costume she made for one of the boys for a school dress-up day is neatly hanging and awaiting a nostalgia showing. Sometime in the future.

Son three had sporting heroes too but the New Zealand cricket team of today may not be quite the one he dreamed of for his future even though he probably dreamed that he would be part of that team himself.

He and his brothers put in enough practice bowling up the driveway and onto the garage doors. He did make it into his high school first eleven and, for his parents at least, that was pretty dreamworld. And, of course, the mists of time have erased memories of broken windows.

His future would no doubt have included some sort of sophisticated communication device but it was probably modelled more on a Ninja Turtle radio telephone. I'm sure he would not have imagined the mobile phones we all take for granted today. Texting would have been unimaginable.

Nowhere in his dream would have been the holiday the three boys took together last year. The brotherly trio set off to New Caledonia for a dream holiday which is now firmly in the past but may well inspire similar events in the future.

Because the holiday was well enough into the future, he was able to keep his parents up to date on events by emailing photos. On their first night away, we received a fabulous photo of the three of them dining in an al fresco French restaurant. When he was young and couldn't wait till the future, he only knew photo albums.

In his dream future, son three probably would have travelled by space car. In his real future he has a nineties Nissan Pulsar which chugs a bit from time to time but has just passed its warrant of fitness test and may provide a few thousand more kilometres of travel.

Alas, it will never be capable of inter-galactic travel.

I certainly don't think his future involved student loans but we won't spoil this piece by going into that. It will all be paid off sometime in the distant future.

Nor will we spoil it by pointing out that he would never have expected Winston Peters to be around. Still!

But back to the now.

In the near future, all three boys will be back home for yet another delightful few days of family Christmas.

Here's to the near future.

Here's to Christmas. Here's to our boys.

Wyn Drabble is a teacher of English, a writer, public speaker and musician.