I relished each word of Haley’s personal history, yet I blazed through the pages like wildfire. The story of Kunta Kinte’s life was one I could not forget. I became a part of the story, watching the generations go by until Kunta Kinte was a mere fading memory. I wanted to cry out to them, his own descendants, “How could he be so easily forgotten?” The excellent writing, the characters, the story itself are not only what I took from Alex Haley’s Roots. What I remembered the most were the emotions it pulled from me. From the depths of my being, Roots drew heartbreak, and peace, and delight, and fury, all which I had previously known, and it brought memories of my own life to the surface. We were similar, Kunta Kinte and I. Reading through his life in a few hundred pages, I realized that the book was just as much about my family as Alex Haley’s. It did not matter about the time gap, or the ethnic differences, or the element of fiction. Haley wrote about himself, and me, and about everyone. The book followed lifetimes that made up generations, stepping through time like it was nothing but a curtain. It was a story of the offspring of offspring, each one more removed than the last. It described each one of us, born of our ancestors, which we ourselves will one day all become.

I now began to realize why Roots is such a well-known classic. I understood why the copy my sister loaned me was so well-worn to the point of falling apart. The pages are soft and creased from use because the story speaks to its readers. Perhaps it tells each one something different, but no matter—Roots’ influence runs deep and wide in all of those who open its cover. To me, the book spoke of life in its largest sense. It was a reminder of the difference that perspective can make: that life, my own single life, seems so large while I am in it, but yet it is only a single drop in the pool of generations that have been before and those that are yet to come. I am made up of the lives of my ancestors; their daily living, their dreams and goals, their personalities, and their very beings are what I come from. While they lived, their lives seemed to them as large as mine does now, but slowly they became a part of the past, a memory, just as I will one day become.

Alex Haley’s story is one of truth: the truth that time is fleeting, yet the human spirit is everlasting. Memories fade and disappear from the minds of the living, but the fact that the past was once real can never change. The earth has a memory of its own—one that changes and grows with each life it once held. A full life lived is not diminished by the aging of time, but is enriched like an old wine. Roots made me believe that my existence is important, but not for the reasons I once thought. My life may not be written in a biography, or remembered in history books, but the way I lived my life, my very being, will be carried on through those that come behind me. What is a part of me today will be a part of my descendants tomorrow. My dreams, my character, my life will become a foundation for future generations, and though I may be lost along the way, my life will always be the past that forms the future. Just as Kunta Kinte was a step in time, a single life, so I will slowly become a part of the roots of time with every passing year.