This is a photo from an IBM magazine article published in 1986 when I was an Artificial Intelligence programmer at IBM’s Artificial Intelligence Technology Center (AITC) in Washington DC. This was during the days when programmers were still required to wear shirts and ties at work (now, programmers come to work in shorts and t-shirts). We used specialized computers and languages to create ‘smart’ systems. Much of this work was primitive by today’s AI standards, but we created the foundation for much of the work that followed. My special interest was in getting computers to understand Human languages and I was proud of the work I did in that field. Unfortunately, the papers I published in those days were classified “IBM Confidential” and were not shared with the outside world, but we presented them at many internal IBM conferences.

We were on the beach, just playing around, and Will said, “Let’s race to the Pier!” Will, Erin and I had been running short sprint races on the sand for the past 2 days, but this was a much longer distance than anything we had yet run. From where I stood, it looked to be about a 1/4 mile to the pier, but when you’re running in sand that can seem like a lot more.

Now, Erin and Will are very close, but they’re also very competitive with each other and neither one of them can bare the taunting that inevitably follows a loss of any kind, so I knew both of them would not take this event lightly – each would consider it a mandatory victory. Although Erin is about a year and a half older then Will, she’s smaller and willowy and probably a bit faster than Will, who is larger and quite muscular for a kid his age. Erin is the speed guy and Will is the strength guy, and in the sand this would be a good race, although I suspected that Erin’s speed, endurance, and age would probably give her a slight edge.

Although Will and Erin both play soccer, which builds endurance, I wasn’t sure if they would be able to pace themselves so that they wouldn’t flame out before we reached the finish line, so I decided to set a comfortable pace.

We started the race with Will on my left and Erin on my right, running with the 3 of us staying side by side, both Erin and Will content to stay neither behind nor ahead of me. As the race progressed, either Will or Erin will start to pull ahead slightly so I picked up the pace in order to catch up. We hadn’t yet reached a pace that seemed too exhausting, so I wasn’t concerned.

As we closed in on the finish line I could feel both of them straining to go, so when Will made the first move I decided to go all out. We were still about 50 feet from the finish line and going pretty much full speed, and I kept moving my head from left to right in order to make sure I would stay with the leader, but Erin and Will were fairly even, with Erin perhaps a few inches ahead of Will and starting to accelerate.

It was a breezy day, and when I was about 15 feet from the finish line my hat blew off, I could feel it blow up and then behind me. The hat wasn’t important, but It distracted me enough so that I momentarily lost track of Will and Erin, and just before I crossed the line I first saw that Will, on my left, was just inches ahead of me and would beat me to line. I glanced to the right to find Erin, whom I assumed would be in front, and as I crossed the line …. she wasn’t there!

As winner, Will immediately went into his victory dance and I turned all the way around to see about Erin. Just as I finished my turn, Erin – this highly competitive kid – walked up to the finish line, held out her hand to me and said, “Here FranPapa, you dropped your hat.”

Throughout the years, during my travels as a consultant, I would send post cards to my grandchildren, Erin and Will, from the various cities in which I worked. I knew they would be entertained by the city scenes on the front and the funny things I wrote on the back.

In 2001 I was consulting at a telecommunications company in St. Louis and staying at a downtown hotel near the Mississippi River and the Gateway Arch. One night I decided to entertain myself by watching the gamblers at the local riverboat casino. Although I didn’t really wager any money I did spend a buck on a post card picturing the riverboat casino. I addressed it to Erin and Will, and wrote on the back, “This is the riverboat gambling casino that I visted today …. I lost my shirt!”. I knew they were too young to understand the shirt reference (6 and 4) but I assumed their mom would have fun trying to explain what that meant.

About 2 weeks later it was my birthday and was at home in North Carolina opening presents with Virginia. A birthday present had been sent from Erin and Will in Arkansas. I was told that Lisa had taken Erin and Will out to buy me a present, and when Lisa asked Erin for some ideas Erin said “Oh .. I know! … I know!” and she picked out the present that she knew would be right.

When I opened the gift box I found …. you guessed it … a shirt! I’m sure Erin and Will spent that whole 2 weeks picturing me shivering away, shirtless, along side the muddy Mississippi River! I guess Lisa had a tough time explaining my gambling reference.

I was sitting in my chair, splitting firewood for the evening’s campfire with Virgil squatting down beside me. I don’t know his real name, he told it to me the day before but I couldn’t quite understand it due to his complete lack of teeth. He just seemed like a Virgil. I liked him, he was friendly. Virgil was one of several local old timers camped next to us, and he and the others got a big kick out of watching me try to split the iron hard, aged hickory logs I had brought along from home for campfire wood.

Virgil had been telling me about his 1/2 acre property in an adjacent valley. He asked, “Do ya own enna land?”

“Yeah, I have a 10 acre wooded property in Chatham County.”

“Do ya have enna squirrels on it?”

“Yeah,” I replyed in a puzzled voice, “I have lotsa squirrels on it.”

Virgil paused for a second and then he said, “Do ya eats em?”

Now, I know its common in Appalachia for locals to hunt and eat squirrels, so I was only slightly surprised by the question. I answered half seriously: “No, the squirrels on my property are too skinny – they’re hardly worth the effort of cleanin’ an cookin'”

Virgil looked at me with a gleam in his eye and said through a big toothless grin: “Ah makes gravy out the skinny ones!”

We both laughed.

Erin was only 9 months old, and she and I were still getting to know each other. She was my first grandchild and I was fascinated with her. I was laying on the couch and she was sitting on my stomach, playing with a little stuffed toy as she babbled and chirped happy sounds.

Suddenly, without notice, Erin lurched forward and dropped her head down on mine, placing her little forehead against mine with our eyes lined up eyeball to eyeball. I was a little surprised by this so I just laid there as still as I could, waiting to see what she’d do next. To my dismay she did absolutely nothing, she just stared, unblinking, into my eyes. It seemed like forever, but after about 15 or 20 seconds she lifted her head up as suddenly as she had dropped it down and went back to her babbling and chirping.

Although something inside of me kept saying that this was a profound moment, I dismissed it as simply interesting, and pushed it out of my mind. But something changed that day, not only in my life, but in Erin’s as well. As Erin grew she seemed to be as fascinated with me as I as with her – if we were in the same room together she would make her way over to where I was, if we were out on family activities she either wanted to be holding my hand or to carried by me. She followed me around like a little puppy and we could play together for hours like 2 little children.

Now, I’ve told this story to a small number of people over the past few years and no one has ever asked what I consider to be the inevitable question. So without waiting for you to ask, I’ll provide the answer for once and for all:
I don’t know what Erin saw in my eyes that day …
but I know what I saw …
I saw God.