“Look at this!” they cried, the eight of them huddled around an old scrapbook whose leather covers were cracked and binding weary. “Was that really grandmother? Gosh, was she ever beautiful! Look Sophie, you’ve got her cheekbones. And Henry, I’ll be darned if you don’t have her eyes. Did she really manage to collect 182 rubber duckies in her life? Fascinating!”
Or at least that’s how I’d like it to go. I’ve begun writing down my history, and my family’s history, in the hopes that one day my children will be interested. I’d hate for it to be one of those memoirs that lands in a box in some unknown distant descendent’s attic. Inevitably, Uncle Herbert’s picture escapes the fold and lands forlorn in a pile of dust. Some months later, a person comes along to search for the extra vacuum bags and discovers the picture just sitting there. Not knowing who the hell it was, she considers for a second before throwing the old photograph aside to deal with “sometime” – and Uncle Herb spends the rest of eternity alone.
No, not me! I will make sure everything is tagged, checked, marked and sealed for the throngs of progeny that will come tumbling from my loins. I’ll have recorded anecdotes and memories which will make it clear to little Benjamin why he’s a genius. The mystery behind little Helena’s bodhisattva nature will finally be revealed, and she will clutch the book to her chest and quietly whisper thank you.
I will instill a sense of duty and a hunger for knowledge, damn it. I only hope I’m interesting by then. And discerning. Certainly there are things that any one of us would not want to know about our parents, or ever want to even think about – like how we were conceived. Ew. In writing our memoirs, my husband and I likewise will have to remind ourselves to leave out all of our gory parts, but I will include all the other important bits that I and my living family can possibly recall. Such as, Great Grandmother Bebe died along with Asgar in a horse-and-buggy accident, but they said to tell you “hello”. Unfortunately, I waited a bit too long to start asking questions of my own parents, which has left great holes in the story. Just when you have gathered your thoughts, people go and die when you don’t expect them to, and they might be the only person who could have connected a few vital dots. If we cannot draw in lines that we don’t know are missing, whole generations go silent.
My husband prefers to do this online, through Ancestry.com. We watched a commercial last night and he promptly made for his office to begin our own virtual family tree. I stood over his shoulder and watched as he created two little squares next to each other, one for each of us. He remembered my birthday by heart, and wrote it out like he meant it. It was one of those moments where gravity hit and all of life’s armor fell to the floor. I looked at my husband and felt a surge of utter love, and I leaned forward and held him close, peppering his soft brown hair with kisses… this is my dear… my family… my future… my other square floating atop a blank page, waiting to be written.
