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I imagine myself standing on a conveyer belt like the ones people walk on at airports, only I can neither hasten nor retard the progress of this belt for it is carrying me through time. I wave goodbye forever to the passing moments: to my 64th birthday last Friday; to the sad face of my beloved neighbor who left
a half hour ago for a new home in another state; and to the newness of a baby girl named Sidney
who was born less than two days ago. As I held Sidney, I thought back to 1949 when I was
born, to the people who were in their sixties then who saw me as I was seeing
her, knowing that they would die as I was coming into maturity. So does each
generation watch its successor enter the world helpless, and its
successor watch it leave the world helpless. If only the helplessness of the old
could be as cherished as the helplessness of the young. But even for the young
there is the foreboding of sorrow, for who can contemplate the pain that they will know and
not grieve for them and wish in vain to protect them?
*Henry Austin Dobson
