THE STORY TELLERS.....
We are the chosen. My feelings are, in each family, there
is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put
flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell the
family story and to feel that somehow they know, and approve.
To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but,
instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We
are the story tellers of the tribe.
All tribes have one. We have been called as it were, by
our genes.
Those
who have gone before cry out to us:
"Tell our story."
So, we do. |
In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many
graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost
count. How many times have I told the ancestors you have a
wonderful family you would be proud of us? How many times
have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love
there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just
documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the
things I do? It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost
forever to weeds and indifference and saying I can't let this
happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of
my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It
goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish.
How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to
respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or
giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for
their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to
make and keep us a Nation.
It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing
it for us. That we might be born who we are. That we
might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and
scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and
they are us. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of
my family. It is up to that one called in the next
generation to answer the call and take their place in the long
line of family storytellers. That, is why I do my family
genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up
and put flesh on the bones.
Borrowed from the Beattie Project Newsletter
Author Unknown
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