Reflections on October 1958, October 1976, and October 2026
Mom probably sent cookies. She knew how much I loved them and wanted my first birthday away from home to be a happy one. I’m pretty sure I shared them with my roommate Dave and maybe some friends in Bravo Company. Or maybe not.
I turned 18 that year: old enough to vote, old enough to drink (then), and old enough to get drafted. Turning 68 this year, I wanted to remember more. So, I pulled out letters and stories from the file my Dad kept about my life.
In that file is a story he wrote about my birth. After bringing my brother into the world in 1944 and my sister in 1947, they wanted a third. “That day was the culmination of a long meandering,” he writes. There were many doctor visits and techniques, all unsuccessful. “But also the peace and joy of the repeated attempts at conception,” he recounts, a bit clinically. It was only after they stopped worrying about it that it happened.
Dad writes in a lot of detail about the day. He took mom to the hospital in the early morning and waited. He talked to other dads-to-be, many of them arriving after he did but leaving him while he sat in the waiting room. The furniture was mid-century modern with fake leather uphostery. The room had a bank of windows and potted plants. Nice, but he didn’t know what was going on. “Is there a problem?” he wondered.
He prayed, “God, I bow before you. Your will be done, I leave everything in your hands. If you must call my wife or my child today, so be it. I surrender it all to you.”
Finally, at 10 pm, the doctor came.
“You are the father of a baby boy, and your wife is doing well.” Long pause. “But there’s a problem.”
“What is it?”
“We listened to your son’s heart, and there’s a murmur. Sometimes, these problems go away after a few days, but other times it’s very serious. I can recommend a specialist…”
He questioned his reasons for wanting to be a father again. He imagined how Mom would call him out for stubbornly insisting on it. Unable to talk to her in her sedated state, he went home. He woke up the older two and told them, “You have a baby brother.”
After a few days in the hospital, the specialist examined me and found that my heart was sound. Dad ends his story, “Today, Robert’s heartbeat is just fine, even when he plays football.”
During that fall of 1976, I was playing JV football, as a matter of fact. (That was before I discovered the joys of rowing.) I earned 20 credits toward graduation and ended the semester 4 out of 283. I often wrote to Vicki, a girl from high school. I asked her to go to a military ball in our hometown over the Christmas holiday, and she said yes. My heart was beating.
How precious and improbable each human life is.
How much we owe those who gave us life.
How fully we should live each day in their honor.
Now in my sixth decade, I have made an effort to learn about those whose lives led to mine. For example, my great-grandfather Carl was born in 1844, emigrated to America in 1868, and lost a wife and three young children to the diseases of that day, before my grandfather, his youngest, was born in 1884. Forty years old when his youngest was born, same as my dad’s age when I was born. I think it’s fitting that my profession, water treatment, might have prevented some of those deaths. Typhoid, now prevented by water treatment and disinfection, took one life out of three in those days.
Each morning, I pray for CGA 2030, and I also often thank God for my forebears. Despite the odds, they had the faith to bring children into this world and to care for them.
So, my dear mentees, please pause and appreciate your first birthday at CGA. Look around, notice everything, thank your maker, and remember. Enjoy your friends and share your cookies. Say thank you to those who gave you life and let it shine.
Blessings,
Robert Aleph
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