The genesis of this haunting question occurred when my daughter, Michelle, stopped for a visit last summer. She moved to California a decade ago. However, she left a dozen large plastic storage boxes with me. I stacked them nicely on utility shelves in my garage. The plan was for Michelle to drive back to pick up all the boxes when she settled into her new home.

Last summer, Michelle went through all the boxes in my garage during her visit. The net result was that everything Michelle wanted to keep from the dozen boxes wound up in one box. When Michelle happens to drive back from the West Coast sometime, she will load the box into her car. The remainder of the things went to Goodwill. The only exception was that Ginger got a dozen stuffed animals, and I got an equal number of small terracotta bowls that Michelle made many years ago.

After Michelle left, I thought I ought to go through a larger amount of my treasures stored for even longer than Michelle’s. Not surprisingly, 90% of my stuff was thrown away or taken to Goodwill. There is now one storage box left.

However, during my drive to clean up my storage room, I found hundreds of old photos, most of which dated back to my early childhood. Some of them I had never seen before. This one haunted me.

This is a photo of my grandfather and me at the Jersey Shore. I was probably three or four years old. What haunts me is that while my grandfather loved his first grandchild, I don’t remember him. He must have died soon after that photo. All the moments we spent together in my first few years have disappeared. He’s gone, and my early memories are also gone.

That is the backstory. This article is my last essay this year. We will celebrate New Year’s Eve in a couple of days. People throughout the world will be singing Auld Lang Syne. Bobby Burns wrote that poem in 1788, which has become the basis of the song.

Burns reflected on life and addressed the haunting issue of remembering the past as one year ends and the next begins. I spent a year at New College of the University of Edinburgh in the late 60s. I fondly remember my time in Scotland. I lived in a flat next to the esplanade of Edinburgh Castle at Ramsey Garden. I could walk to classes at New College in less than two minutes.

On New Year’s Eve, I watched fireworks and the military tattoo on the esplanade at the castle. Many locals would start at the castle on New Year’s Day and walk down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace. In the late 60s, you would see taverns, pubs, clothing stores, bagpipe shops, Campbell the Butcher, St. Giles Cathedral, and John Knox’s home. Those are fond memories.

Much has come and gone in the past half-century. The only remaining places are the taverns, St. Giles Cathedral, and John Knox’s home. Everything else is various types of souvenir shops.

Scotland was my bridge to traveling overseas. After spending time in Scotland, where all my father’s relatives came from in previous centuries, I wanted to visit the world and have. I have traveled throughout Western Europe and some of Central Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South and Southeast Asia, China, and several islands in French Polynesia and Easter Island.

A decade ago, I went to Myanmar to interview the Lady, Aung San Suu Kyi, and failed. Interestingly, I met a young lady named Ti Ti, who was nine at the time. Ti Ti, her two younger sisters, and her parents are my family. I have returned twice to visit them. On the last trip just before COVID-19 visited the world, my family and I spent New Year’s Eve at our favorite eatery near their home. My three granddaughters sang Auld Lang Syne.

We went on a family tour together during my last trip to Myanmar. This is a family photo of us.

They took me to places that hardly any American has visited. Such a place was a very small village called Set Set Yo. I don’t remember how I happened to pick up a little child that wasn’t yet a year old. This is a photo of my great-granddaughter, A Ngal Lay.

It haunts me how the two of us connected. A Ngal Lay looked into my eyes and attempted to grasp what was happening. By sheer happenstance, we met and linked together. She is now four years old. It reminded me of playing with my grandfather at a beach on the Jersey Shore. Both pictures show a young child enjoying their relationship with a much older person. Neither child remembers the event, but the older persons have that picture etched into their psyche.

In response, I have an artist friend in Myanmar. His name is Than. Having taught art history at the college level for a quarter of a century, Than reminds me of Vincent van Gogh. Both of them can paint landscapes, portraits, and still lifes. Than has painted a number of oil paintings and some charcoal drawings for me, which I cherish. However, Than painted this picture of A Ngal Lay and me.

Go to this link to my website and see Than’s process that he used to paint this picture. Than gave A Ngal Lay’s aunt, who took it to her. It is hanging in her home. What will my great-granddaughter think when her parents tell her about an American whose family took him to Set Set Yo, where they met? All that she has is a painting but no memories.

It is unlikely I’ll be able to return to visit my family. Hopefully, Ti Ti will get her student visa and live at my home while attending college. However, it haunts me not to see and visit her siblings and parents.

Scots call New Year’s Eve Hogmanay, which is Scottish for “the last day of the year.” Auld lang syne’s translation isn’t as precise. It translates literally as “times long past” or “long, long ago.”

Regardless, this essay is about my family in Myanmar. I am happy having met them but sad missing them. That angst creates a paradox. In my previous essay, I wrote about Phoenix A, which is the most enormous known black hole in the universe. It is in the middle of the Phoenix Cluster, which is 8.5 billion light years away from us. Thinking about our place in the vastness of the universe creates a paradox. Our caring for each other vs. the absolute nothingness of humans in the two trillion galaxies out there.

At one level, humans viewing themselves as valuable seems like the height of hubris. We have been around 300,000 years and see ourselves as the reason for creation. Go back to the Cosmic Calendar. The biblical notion about creation was written on the last day, the last hour, the last minute, and the last six seconds of the Cosmic Calendar year.

However, amid our finiteness, how we function and our relationship with our family can help future generations to live lives of worth and dignity. Much of my yellow brick road is behind me. I have but a precious amount of time left. What I do in this world will be remembered by fewer and fewer people as time goes by. How I wish to help my family is a paradox. I don’t remember my grandfathers on either side of my family. I’d have to look up the names of my great-grandfathers.

Nonetheless, I am where I am today due to relatives who have helped each generation on their yellow brick roads. Therein lies the reason for my being. I have a choice. I can live for myself, which is a dead end. The other option is to live for my expanding family. It goes back to my mantra. It is in giving that we get.

Your choice is before you. Choose wisely.

This video shows the tattoo on Edinburgh Castle’s esplanade, singing Auld Lang Syne’s first verse.

This is New Year’s Eve fireworks in Edinburgh last year.

The Lone Piper plays on the rampart of Edinburgh Castle.