Cycles of life keep cycling, and we keep playing our roles
The author with his parents in 1956. Credit: Barbara Dobie
There is a photo on my desk. Lately, I've been looking at it a lot.
The photo is of me, as a baby. I'm no more than a few months old. My mother cradles me in her lap, my father perched beside and above her on the arm of an easy chair. He's holding my right hand, while the fingers of my left hand grasp my mother's. The photo was taken in my grandparents' house, nearly 70 years ago.
Both of my parents are beaming. I was their first, though they beamed similarly at all of my siblings who followed. I look at those smiles now and wonder what they were thinking. What were their expectations? What did they think I would turn out to be? Did they have plans? Did they have dreams? On that spring/summer day in 1956, what did they think the future would bring?
Sometimes, I wish I had asked them before they passed. Most times, I'm glad I did not. Some mysteries are best unresolved.
It is not lost on me that decades later, I have been part of several iterations of this photo, in changing roles. Now, I'm the grandfather with the house, on the other side of the camera. And I'm capturing the proud parents, my three daughters and their husbands, with their newborns, my grandchildren. And they are beaming in much the same way as my parents did all that time ago, in much the same way as my wife and I did not quite so long ago.
I can't say that I remember exactly what I was thinking as I smiled at my children, but I know I didn't have any expectations or hopes other than that they would enjoy whatever they ended up doing, that they would be good at it, that they would work hard at it, and that they would treat people kindly along the way. If you have that and your health, chances are pretty good the rest will take care of itself.
When I look at the photo, I see those five generations, each seamlessly giving way to the next. It's the cycle of life writ small, in one family, the same cycle that plays out one way or another for all of us, if we're lucky. I've been giving this a lot of thought lately, as I prepare for yet another change. I'm retiring this week, after nearly four decades at Newsday, and I plan to make a lot more of these memories, in all kinds of places with all the people I love.
Though I'm stepping down from the editorial board, I am grateful to be given the opportunity to continue to write in this space. I'll be taking a break and will return in the fall, when we can resume the Sunday conversations I have treasured so much. A hearty thank you to all of you who have read and all of you who have written back and opened my eyes and taught me something every week.
See you in September.
Columnist Michael Dobie's opinions are his own.
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
