Playing the hand we’re dealt

Earlier in my midlife journey, I explored my past by climbing my family tree. Having researched my roots and explored the branches that extended well beyond my personal family memories, I was able to piece together a colorful past from the public records and pictures permanently etched into our history. So when an aunt asked me how she could learn more about her family’s ancestry, I was quick to offer my assistance. However, I also shared with her that in my search, I found evidence not only of the heartwarming reunions and pictures of significant life moments, but of harsh times and likely social drama that altered how I viewed my ancestors and their lives. As my aunt had been raised in difficult times, she assured me that anything she learned would be better than not knowing more about from where she came.

This search took me on a journey of self-reflection to evaluate how I’d learned to forge ahead in spite of difficult, trying times. My early years were filled with photo albums, but life can never truly be captured in a perfect photo. When I was sorting memorabilia from my great-grandparents, I found wedding announcements, baby pictures, and records to match my shared family stories. What I had not expected to piece together was a timeline of events very different than what I’d come to learn over the years. A shotgun “pretend” wedding, a journey to another state, a documented, “official” wedding, and a baby born two months later. The story of hardship and misfortune of another set of grandparents was evident amidst census records and letters about heading west during the Great Depression. Stories like these, the ones that were not shared but left in the records for those who needed to find them, depicted real life and all that went with it. Dealing with the hands they were dealt, our family fought against the forces that would keep them down and keep them apart. Lessons in strength and faith, for sure.

The ugly, uncomfortable history and the lessons we learn from our past have to be available, documented, and shared. We need to see not only the weddings and the funerals, but also the violence, the discrimination and the justice, so we may all understand how we overcame challenges like poverty, oppression, and hate. Seeing it all doesn’t expose our hand in this card game of life. What it does is strengthen the odds of winning with each deal of the cards. For me, looking at my past filled with lessons is what allows me to live my present.

I will eventually share my findings with my aunt. The struggle to stay rooted in hope for better times is how I am playing this hand I am dealt. Lately, seeing the world around me being disassembled to reshape the lessons I learned from my ancestors is scary. I remain playing the game, but I have NO KINGS in the hand I was dealt and I’m ok with that.

The ghost in the machine

The holiday season always evokes that feeling of sparkle and adventure in me. While my household no longer holds the children who come and go, I look forward to the time when I can host my friends and families in my home or within the festiveness of the city. Being an empty nester has allowed me to grow as an explorer, becoming brave enough to leave my cozy home base during the darker season to engage the world around me with those whom I hold dear. Mindfulness for me during this season of sentimentality is about really seeing the people I’m with, relishing the moment, and helping to create that joy in all we are during this time.

So it was my holiday endeavor to share with my children my memories of days gone past in a way that conveyed the stories they were too young to remember. Photographs presented still life moments of special times, but on video I captured first words, first steps, and first missing teeth. Holidays and birthdays were recorded in documentarian style, knowing even back then that these days would become self-evident in the journey my children were taking. Giddy in my excitement of receiving the final product of this Christmas endeavor, I also expected a trip down memory lane with the extra features of this conversion. Among the multitude of recordings I had provided were mystery cartons and boxes I had never viewed. It was unclear how far back this digital journey would take me.

My goal was to share our family story with the next generations. Would these cannisters of celluloid give my family a sense of history like old Polaroids never could? I clicked on the first icon, seeing a 1951 parade and then the Rose Bowl football game. Numerous captured moments of Central California history, of which John Steinbeck might even be proud. Grainy, silent moments in the time of my family’s past filled my screen. As I watched, I saw the entrance of a young California rancher and his wife, who was dressed in a starched blouse and full skirt. As the camera set on a tall, slim, dark haired beauty of a girl, maybe 14 years old, I stopped because I was looking at a reflection of myself. My mother had appeared in frame, in a setting that took me back to my childhood. The setting of my favorite Christmas memories. This was my mother, smiling, walking, and laughing in her childhood home.

Because my daughters would grow up not seeing my side of the family very often, I wove the fondest of my childhood memories into their daily course of living. Tales of the ranch, the sprawling patio on which my sister and I rollerskated, along the midcentury splendour of Christmas in California with Grammy and Granddad likely fell short on the ears of little girls. But now, there was video to back every story I’d told them.

This shift in my personal timeline stopped me in my tracks. It was like seeing myself, but not myself, filmed in a family story I knew little about. It was like seeing a ghost – the ghost in this machine was forcing me to rewrite everything I knew about my early life. How could there be so much I did not know about my mother and who would eventually become my father?

Seeing my young mother with her grandparents and cousins and little brother camping among the 1950s Sequoias expanded my family story in a way nothing else could. Like bellows on a fire, this richness of my ancestry had blown life into my identity in a way only personal history could. Like that grandfather telling that same story over and over at the dinner table, I now had added depth of who I was and from whence I came to the mother…to the person I’d become for my children. The life I had crafted from the experiences as I remembered them became more layered, more vibrant with each roll of film I viewed. Mindful of my past but remembering to live in my moments, I realized that these digital ghosts did not haunt my present, but made it richer. I now approach the new year with a confidence that is grounded, like the roots of those Sequoias, in the foundation of our generations reaching for the skies as I grow.

Climbing our family tree

Just recently, I became a grandmother again. The joy of seeing my daughter give birth to what would be the next generation of our clan filled me with pride. As a mother of a blended family, I have learned that the significance of family doesn’t always come with blood, but the love you cultivate in the relationship of family. During this past year, relationships and connection to kin has taken on new significance for me. Even friendships looked different this year, as we retreated to our homes and safe spaces. Our focus was on the tight circles that surrounded our loved ones and our lives. We placed our arms around our little world and unintentionally disengaged from those who fell outside of it, if only by a little. It was a time when I felt more alone than I had in a long time. I longed for my missing family and social connection and the meaning these relationships brought to my life.

As many likely did, my family explored the boundaries of our ancestry to research our origins. We wanted to know more about from where we came, and learn about the distant relatives mentioned by our aging parents each holiday and family reunion. Surprisingly, as we began to climb our family tree, we discovered branches we had never seen. As leaves on our tree, each photograph and census report hinted at stories and a history we had yet to uncover. Not only did we match our genetic leaves with others in our past, but we learned about our ethnic heritage and those ancestors who had a knack for business. We became detectives and uncovered the hidden stories about those who suffered loss and married again. School photographs shared confirmation of an education, and the births, deaths, and marriages told stories of hardship and the baby who didn’t survive. Most of all, we climbed our tree high enough to reach a branch we’d never seen before, living family we could meet and with whom we could share the love that would eventually deepen our roots and strengthen our family tree. We found new family who, with a phone call or an email, became our daughter, our sister, our grandmother, and aunt.

Discovering new family was scary, but exciting in a way we had not expected. In my midlife, I have often looked back at how much my tiny family before motherhood has grown from the sapling of my childhood to a craggy oak tree of motherhood and beyond. Whether by blood or by bond, this seasoned oak continues to be enriched by each family member who sprouted roots in this fertile ground. I hope that as we grow the shade we provide continues as well.