Good Morning,
About a month ago and close to the time that granddaughter Sophie Alese Long celebrated her first birthday, I received this photo of her. Since then I have had it as my desktop, relegating the previous photo of Jeanie & I to the archives.
Besides having great composition, lighting and pose, I am taken in by the pensive look on Sophie’s face well beyond her years. I cannot help wondering what she could be thinking at the time the photo was taken. I do not remember anything of my first year and only with the help of photos can I place myself in the moment captured it those early years.
So, is it possible that she could be having such a deep thought as her expression implies to me and is she really seeing into her future with that distant gaze?
There is such an innocence I see in her perfect complexion and lack of lines on her face brought on by the challenges to her nature, still to be. Missing too, but hopefully to come are the “laugh lines” beside her eyes, which will reflect the joys in her life.
For me and for most parents, grandparents and the like, the face of a child, especially our own, brings hope to the world and through them we can envision the future beyond our mortal existence. They become the generations to carry on after we have met our just reward and are archived in the annals of the family tree.
What will Sophie’s world look like when she is my age some 65 years from now in 2076? With the advancements in technology and medicine, which now grow exponentially, she could be connected in ways we can only imagine and live well beyond “old age” as we see it today. Of course there are many other factors that come into play and life is not perfect, nor does it come with a guarantee of health and happiness.
So this leaves me with a wish and a purpose.
- The wish… is that Sophie will have a life of freedom and that of she chooses. That she will have enough, yet not so much that she looses the appreciation of not having. That she has passion for the people and things she loves and is willing to take a chance on love. That she finds joy in the every day things and is awed by a sunset or the beauty of the ocean. That she has empathy for other humans of all races and even the smallest of living things. That she has dreams and some of the special ones become reality.
- The purpose… is that as much as I can, I be there when she wants me to be. This as a vision of the past and a path to her roots and in turn I get to glimpse the future.
La Dolce Vita to you, dear Sophie.
Love, Dad