Thank You, Grandfather

Recently, a friend related a story to me, seen on our local public broadcast channel, about some genetic research. This research postulates that we are all descended from one man from the geographical region of Africa. But more importantly to me tonight, at some point some years later, one of his descendants crossed the ocean from India to Australia some number of years before primitive man is believed to have crossed the land bridge from Siberia into Alaska. The validity of this research doesn't concern me.

Imagine living in the stone ages. Imagine having to hunt for your food and your clothing, gather your fruits, nuts, and herbs while you follow herds of wild beasts about, and sleeping near a fire to keep the predators at bay. Now, imagine building a boat. Imagine sailing or rowing whatever craft you could hew out of a log with a sharp rock across the Indian Ocean. Imagine wanting to.

What need must have been so pressing to make our ancestor undertake so trecherous a voyage? Was it necessity, the mother of invention, that drove our ancestor to craft such a vehicle, charter it across unknown waters, to lands not seen before? Or was it something more?

Today, we are not being hunted by predators. We are not starving. Our lands are not falling into the seas. We've harnessed the lightening, we've quenched the fire, we've named and tamed the birds and the beasts. Yes, sometimes we squabble amongst ourselves, but we no longer blame the angered gods for all the ills we suffer.

Yet still, our grandfather's blood runs true in our veins. We still carve sailing bricks out of primitive materials with primitive tools. We still climb into our fragile crafts and brave the tumultuous seas and journey to places no other humans have seen. Necessity has little to do with it.

Grandfather, I thank you. For your courage and your sense of adventure, and your willingness to believe that, even after watching the lives of four hands and four of your tribe pulled down in the undertow, smashed on the beach by the tide, shredded in the winds of a hurricane, still you sailed. We are all here today, because you sailed.

Ages from now, may our descendants thanks us "because we flew".