Here I am, less than a year old and to his dying day, that's the way my Dad always felt about me.
I come from a long line of hardworking, poor, mostly Irish immigrants on both sides of the family.
On my Dad's side, my Grandfather - who told me late in his life that he had run gin through the Adirondacks during prohibition - went on to work at Kodak his whole life. My Dad never finished college but he was very successful in business and life. And he raised me both explicitly and implicitly to understand I was destined for a better life.
My Mom's side - the Mullaney's - were even more poor than the Duncan side of the family. Here is my Great Grandmother with all of her children. The red arrow points to Gracie, my Grandmother (who looks just like me and my son Drew). Now, get your head around what my Great Grandmother's life must have been like. Six girls, never enough money, and a husband that didn't work a lot. But still, most of those girls grew up to became professionals - nurses and teachers. And my mother, despite her poor health and other struggles, managed to raise three kids, finish college and instill in me self confidence and a will to succeed.
I look at my two boys and I know, deeply, how much farther ahead they are right from the start than I was...which is a few orders of magnitude ahead of where my parents and grandparents were. So if I think I have a lot of options open to me, it pales in comparison to the opportunities available to them.
And I'm not just talking in the material sense. Each of these generations, along the way, has instilled in the next a greater confidence. A new vista of possibility. A wider world view.
But none of it would have been possible...all of it would be a dream....if we all weren't standing on their shoulders. So here I am, here are my sons, held up by of my Dad, my Grandfather, my Mom, my Grandmother...all of them. It's a great legacy. I don't lose sight of it. In fact, I see it more clearly, the older I get.
Thank you. Thank you. All of you.
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