What others have touched

I'm in Newport, Oregon, with two good friends, one of whom grew up here. We wandered the streets to the rhythm of her stories; we saw her old elementary school, junior high, high school. She married a Coast Guard man and lived in the old lighthouse keeper's house, since demolished, next to this nineteenth-century lighthouse at Yaquina Head. Her first-born son was a baby in this rambling house of dreams, and she spent his babyhood watched over by this beaming light, climbing over rocks, going down to the beach at low tide, humming songs of the wind over his cradle.

So I thought of this poem:

When his grandson was born, he
began collecting antique toys--a torn
doll, a wooden rabbit, a cloth bear.
He loves to see his little one touch
what others have touched.
--Mark Nepo.