The Line Moves On

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”


― Omar Khayyám



Two weeks ago I became a grandfather for the first time, to a stunningly beautiful little girl. I know, I know, they are all that way, especially to parents and grandparents. Still, in this case, it’s true.


So, other than the usual awe of new life, how does it feel? It feels like an offer of affirmation, a sign of renewal from the universe. An opportunity and perhaps an obligation.


Whenever I do family tree research, I get the image of a pen moving across time, writing a particular story against the shared human background. Looking back, it’s decipherable, in different degrees, because it happened, and that’s done. Fascinating, but because the choices made were made, the story goes a certain way.


In my own generation, I have been the nub of the pen, the writer, like it or not, and the choices I make change the story, and are my portion of the line. In my life I must accept the obligation of choosing, and sometimes I choose what seems the better course, sometimes the safer course, sometimes the course of least resistance, sometimes the one with most immediate sense of gratification. Whatever they were, they were made and form the line. Sure, I can still change the story. But I’ll be changing it, not writing it anew. The past is fixed.


And this little one, the daughter of my daughter, is the new nub of our family pen. I’m part of her history, and someday, I hope and expect, she will look back at the line and see what I drew and how it led to her. I wonder if she will see someone like my father’s grandfather, a mysterious man who appeared and far too quickly disappeared, leaving behind little trace. I’m talking to you, Oscar from Ohio, who suddenky shows up in the records, marries into a long-running line, fathers three children, goes off adventuring, gets consumption, comes home and dies, with litle evidence that he ever was, save for a marriage license and an obituary. Not even a trace of a story.


Or someone like my maternal grandfather, a hard man who deserted my mother as a child, and who I saw only when he was old and needed somewhere to stay awhile and my parents took him in. Or my paternal grandfather, who died when my father was a teen and exists to me only in the stories dad and his brothers sometimes told.


I don’t want to be any of them.


I will try my best, little one, to be the best I can be, and to give to you what so many grandparents in my line never gave. Some substance to your story.