The day I hung up my tow rope.

A family "patriarch" ponders the passage of power, control, and responsibility to the next generation.

It all happened so suddenly. We had reached our resort on the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. All 20 of us had journeyed safely--"Gick," my wife, our four adult children and their spouses, and our 10 grandchildren. This biannual pilgrimage has long been part of the intimate fabric of our family life.

Forty-four years ago, Gick and I spent our honeymoon at this same lake. Each year we journeyed here with our children. This is where, with one old small boat after another, I taught them to ski. They all fell in love with this water--and this sport. I would pull them three at a time all over this lake. They mastered the art of taking off from the dock, never getting into the water. They popped off the dock, their little long thin bodies skimming lightly over the warm water.

By general family consensus I was the "center" of the event during this patriarchal period of our marriage. I loved this lake, I loved skiing, I loved teaching them the spirituality of the sport. For many years I could ski better than they. I would ski on one ski, holding the tow rope with my other foot. Then I'd put the ski handle around my head, while my children and Gick would scream in mock terror and secret pride. "Dad, you'll kill yourself," they shouted.

The Schmidts, all of us, loved this time, this place, this wonder. This massive baptismal font was where we bathed our lives annually for new birth and new life. We always left healed, and holy.

For 44 years it had been so. As the family grew, we continued every other year to make the same journey, filling our time as we always had: eating, drinking, talking, listening, playing cards, swimming, and skiing--of course skiing.

So I have sketched the setting. What happened suddenly was a new ambiguous insight about growing older. There were other metaphors I had learned this past year as well: retired, emeritus professor, older, senior citizen. None of those words catch the impact of what I learned when it happened so suddenly.

I arrived at the resort dock with my youngest daughter, Ruth, and her husband, Kevin. We were renting a ski boat for the week, and someone had to "sign" for the financial responsibility. I had been cautioned by my insurance consultant not to be that person. Because I was "retired," the consequences of a lawsuit resulting from an accident could be catastrophic. I needed to protect our retirement savings. So my daughter and son-in-law signed the rental document, and I left them to drive the boat to the neighboring resort where we were all staying. It was a beautiful boat--large, expensive, fast. Because it was similar to one they had just sold, they would know how to drive it, how to pull skiers, etc. They were comfortable! They waved and left, smiling, happy, confident, and conflict-free, I thought.

I walked to my car alone, watching as they crossed the bay to the main channel. Suddenly my eyes filled with tears. I was no longer in charge. I was not driving the family boat. I would not pull the next skier. Instead I stood on the side, watching the symbolic passage of control, power, and responsibility to another generation.

I was filled with emotion as I saw how my daughter and her husband loved this place, this sport, this wet and wonderful natural font of life. Another generation would be introduced this week to this place, to waterskiing, to the joys and wonder of wind in your face, water on your body, sun splashing your very being. I should be happy. I tried to understand my tears. They were, as they have been about most of my aging experience, deeply ambiguous.

At one level, my feelings were positive, primal in their origin. This place, my place, God's place was so naturally passed on to their keeping and their caring. Little Schmidts would be dunked and wetted in this water for at least another generation, and I suspect for even longer. And as the week unfolded, most of that wet and wonderful activity took place without me.

I have chronic arthritis of the neck, so it would be impossible for me to pull these grandchildren. But something else had changed. I no longer needed to be in the boat all day, even to pull these little ones into ecstasy. At a new level of contentment, I was satisfied to watch and listen to the stories at the end of the day.

There was another pervasive feeling as well. I sensed with new clarity the reality of my own passing, of my dying, of my letting go. I was no longer the only teacher, the only center. All my children were now better skiers, better swimmers, and far more filled with energy than I. So I understand that my tears were about passage, being nearer to death. I wept with sadness. I will not be here forever to feel this lake, to experience its healing, to watch my grandchildren and their children grow into adulthood.

I knew that afternoon on the dock that this symbolic exchange of leadership and power was an important marker for me on a critical passage through life.

I drove slowly back to our cabins. Ruth had arrived first and was walking toward me. Her face was gentle and serious. "Dad, you know how much I love this place, but I feel sad. It should have been you who drove the boat to our resort. In my own mind, this lake will always be a place where I am the child and you are the parent. But you and mom won't always be with us. As I brought the boat here, it made me aware of time passing, for all of us. And there is no way to stop growing older."

Her words and feelings confirmed my sense about the wonderful, watery, sacramental meaning of the lake. We each knew the intimate blessing of that warm spring morning, when dad acknowledged growing older and daughter affirmed her mature adulthood. The rest of the week was wonderful.

It all happened so suddenly.

His son has said he doesn't need him

   When he finally got to the bleak
   middle of things, down on his knees
   in sand, in screamed blaze of day,
   he found flowers tiny as pins
   under blue sage, tiny quiverings
   breeze and the filtered light had made,

   and finally he could imagine
   nighttime crossings between island
   and mainland, the flying fish
   spraying off the bow, the coastline
   his mountainous, flammable child
   ready to be something else.

--Richard Robbins

STEPHEN A. SCHMIDT is professor emeritus at the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University, Chicago.