So the image at left was attached to one of those oft-forwarded emails with a series of humorous images. Perhaps it is because of my current tenuous status as a future father but I found it more disturbing and sad than funny and amusing. If I were the father of ducklings (which I hope I am not), that looks like something I'd do.
Stepping back from the day to day apprehensions and waxing momentarily philosophical, I feel somehow connected to the generations that came before me. Whereas I have in the past always identified myself as separate from my parents and grandparents (I was the child, they were not), I somehow now feel a greater connection to them. Whereas it was always a stretch to imagine, for example, the apprehensions of my grandfather flying a B-17 over Nazi Germany in 1941, I feel absolutely in tune with the apprehensions he no doubt felt as the nine months ticked away to the birth of my father in 1946. While there is comfort and a certain amount of pride in feeling connected to something so much larger than myself (the extension of the bloodline, continuation of the species, etc.), I also am becoming acutely aware of my own mortality. While it may seem counter intuitive to acknowledge the certainty of death at the very moment I am to help bring new life into it, the fact that I now identify my role as that of my father and grandfather before me forces me to realize that I am no longer a child and that I too will grow old and someday die.
On a happier note, we should find out the gender of our child next week. Can't hardly wait!
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