Dallas, Texas

The news had spread like wildfire after Thanksgiving and by Monday afternoon, even those who had never personally met Mr and Mrs JR Ewing knew about the future heir to the Ewing throne and the vast empire and fortune that came with it. JR had known that his father wanted a grandson and a solid succession plan before he would seriously consider retiring and making JR the president of Ewing Oil, however, he hadn't quiet realised just how serious his father was about that, not until it was finally real, which, as of last week, it now was. Being only sixty-two years of age and knowing that his grandson hadn't even been born yet, Jock didn't feel that it was necessary to begin the retirement process just yet. However, it did feel good to know that if he ever did decide that he was done with full time work and wanted to take a step back from the business, he wouldn't have anything to worry about in regards to the future of Ewing Oil and his insistence that it always remain a family company. Walking around his office as he thought about the past few days, JR stopped to look at a framed picture of he and his father that had been taken when he was just a young boy, over twenty years had passed since that day, but the memory was still fresh in his mind. He hadn't had much of a childhood outside of Ewing Oil and he would have enjoyed a little bit more balance and diversity in his life, but he had truly enjoyed being Jock Ewing's son and the future heir to the Ewing empire, and he couldn't wait to share some of the same experiences with his own son. In a way, although he wanted his future son to share in the same father-son bonding experiences with him as he and his father had had, other memories of his childhood and the stories Sue Ellen had shared about hers made him hesitant about becoming a father. He knew Sue Ellen feared becoming her mother, but in a way, he also feared becoming his father. It wasn't that his father was a bad man or someone he disrespected, it wasn't that at all, however, as much as he loved his father, they hadn't had the kind of relationship that he wanted to have with his own son. If anything, the relationship Bobby and Jock had was something he wanted for he and his own son, however, even that relationship wasn't one he wanted to replicate, because the fact was, Jock Ewing had three sons, but only one of them was his favourite, and only one of them truly felt his love in all areas of life.

Then there was the relationship he had with his mother, and although he wasn't a woman, he wanted his future son to have a better relationship with him than he had had with his mother, and he knew that with even just a little bit of love and attention, that he probably would have at least that. He didn't remember a whole lot about his very early childhood, but he remembered enough to know that when Gary was born, his mother cast him aside as if he were nothing to her, handing him off to his father to raise without so much as an explanation why or a reassurance that it wasn't his fault. As a small, shy child, the change from the comfort and kindness of his mother's parenting style to the harshness of his father's parenting style had come as quite a shock, and he'd never really forgiven her for just forgetting about him the way she had. Her actions all those years ago had established the distant and confusing relationship they still had and he still held onto some of the resentment, anger and upset from that time in his life. He knew that his mother loved him, because she wasn't an evil woman, but to a young child, knowing that a parent's love existed, but not feeling it, was a fairly damaging thing. Whatever close relationship had existed between he and his mother in the past had ceased when she handed him off to his father to raise and they'd moved into a new territory from that point, one that was polite and generally acquainted, but not close, not the way she and Gary were, or even the way she and Bobby were. Really, it was only a few years ago, just before he started dating Sue Ellen, that she began to take an interest in his life, and even then it was more about judging his life choices and trying to push him toward 'the right path' than it was about wanting to get to know him. No, he was determined to have a better relationship with his son than he had with either of his parents, and he knew that Sue Ellen was too, because they'd had equally dysfunctional childhoods and neither one of them wanted to repeat their parents mistakes.

He was especially conscious of the way he'd been raised as a sibling, because he and Sue Ellen had always discussed having multiple children, and not recreating the sibling mess of his own childhood was incredibly important to him, because he never wanted another child to have to deal with the things he'd had to, it just wouldn't be fair. His parents had done the absolute worst thing they could with their three sons, they'd never attempted to treat them equally, or even pretended that they were trying to, and their obvious favouritism, out of proportion punishment and unequal standards caused irreversible damage to the individuals involved and ruined any potential for a real, genuinely close sibling relationship. If he and Sue Ellen were lucky enough to have more than one child, then he wanted them to have the opportunity to develop a close sibling bond, not grow up hating each other because one child was treated like a prince and the other like a peasant. He knew for Sue Ellen it was important to her that their children have something more to bond over than a mutual dislike of their parents, because she always regretted that Patricia's parenting pitted her and Kristin against each other in a competition and never gave them the opportunity to just be sisters. Patricia had a high level of expectation for Sue Ellen, but for Kristin, that level was even higher, because Sue Ellen had always set the bar so high, and to impress her mother meant she had to do more and do better. It was a totally unfair competition in many areas, but even their age difference alone meant that Kristin was always playing catch up and being compared to Sue Ellen, and she resented her for it. Sue Ellen wanted so much more for her children and JR was right behind her in that wish, because with their future child on the way and his future as the president of Ewing Oil now secure, he had almost everything he wanted in life, and to ruin that with bad parenting skills would be the ultimate disappointment. The sound of his intercom buzzing broke his thoughts and putting the photograph back on the shelf, he returned to his desk and to his work, though today, the thoughts of his future life never quite left his mind.

To be continued…