the long and winding road

November 2039 - John Lowell is 69, Anne and James Smith are 39, George is 15, John and Tom are 11, Jamie is 8, Alex is 6.

This is the first Thanksgiving since Anne's mother Elizabeth died, and for the first time Anne is cooking Thanksgiving dinner at her house.

beautiful boy

August 2025 - Elizabeth and John Lowell are 55, Anne Smith is 25, George Smith is 15 months.

Elizabeth isn't sure that she's ready to be a grandmother. Sure, she's excited and happy about it, but it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that she gave birth to her children. But Anne is 25 years old, married, a mother, and a professor at Lowell College. Sometimes Elizabeth can hardly believe it. What happened to her little girl?

Cabot would be 32 this year. But Cabot will always be 17.

love and marriage

August 2022 - Anne Lowell and James Smith are 22, John and Elizabeth Lowell are 52.

Anne Lowell didn't give much thought to love. She was a serious girl, she planned her life carefully - school, college, work. But she met James Smith on her first day of college, and right away she started to fall for him.

He took her to dinner at the Hotel Ampersand at the start of their senior year.

"This is so wonderful, James," Anne said. "What's the occasion?"

"Well, I had something special in mind," he said with a smile, sliding a jewelry box across the table.