Hello, welcome to my Blogcast, happy to see you back again.
Today’s topic or whatever you want to call it has to do with “our” family history. What do we know about our family’s history? What do we know of our parents’ life before we came along? I know with the advent of the Internet, and television programs like “Roots” people have been delving more and more into their family history. There are so many DNA and genealogy sites that allow us to trace our beginnings that I am surprised how little we know about the family members that are closest to us, at least in my case.
I was thinking about my mother the other day. She’s been gone since 1989 and I’m 72 years old right now. Sometimes I go back in time and remember small events as they burst forth like tiny bubbles. My heart feels sad when I think about her and what I don’t know.
My mother was born before World War two, she struggled, never finished school, married too young, had children too soon, and ended up working her whole life as a waitress or bartender.
I am ashamed that I never knew what my mother’s dreams were. I never knew what she herself had wanted to become. And sometimes that breaks my heart because I am sure that my mother would have wanted to be something other than what she was at the time of her death.
I have pictures when she was young. When she married. Movie stars weren’t any prettier. I think girls back then seemed so mature for their age. Maybe it was because they survived the hardships of a war.
In my favorite picture she is sitting in a chair posing for the camera. I am sure she was filled with dreams of the future. I know she married my father who was not a good person. Or maybe that only came later. If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that he was a monster in disguise, at least to my sister and I when my mother moved out.
My mother had children but I’m not sure that she wanted them. This was at a time before birth control. We all just came along a year and a half separating each of the first three. Five the last one.
I have a ring that belonged to my mother that she wore all the time. It’s a lovely ring. It’s very frail so I don’t wear it very often. But it came from somebody who my mother once loved that was not my father. The only thing I know about the history of this ring came to me after her death.
My grandmother revealed that this was from a man who wanted to marry my mother at some point in her past after she had children. And he gave her this ring as a token of his love.
Grandmother said he was very wealthy and that she “tried to talk Nellie” ( my mom) into marrying him. Grammy said he was a wonderful person, and my mother would never have had to work another day of her life. I could see the sadness wash over my grandmother’s face remembering what a hard life my mother really ended up living. My conclusion is she didn’t want to stick this man with a family when he had never been married so she ended it. We were a chaotic bunch.
I do know that my mother wore this ring every single day until she could no longer wear it. Swelling from age and disease made it impossible later in her life so she passed this ring onto me two years before she died. I could tell that it was very hard for her to part with this treasure when she finally gave it up. Sadly, she never shared the history.
Now that I’m looking at this ring and remembering what my grandmother told me little bits of memories have come back into my brain and I wonder if what is there is part of her story.
I remember my parents separating when I was about 8 years old. My mother moved out of the house and left us children behind. It was quite the shocker for everyone. That was something that wasn’t just done.
Actually she left three of us behind, I think she took my youngest brother with her because I don’t have memories of him being there for that year and a half she was gone.
My imagination says that she left my father and her children because of the romance that resulted in this ring being given to her. I think she fell in love with somebody and chased her dream for a short time and then came back to reality and her family.
I am sorry if she gave up her dream for us. Who knows what our life would have been like if she would have followed her heart.
Now that I am old and memories flicker through like channels on an old television I remember driving through a “ritzy” part of Detroit one time with my mom. She wanted to show me where the rich people lived.
Did I mention that we were usually at poverty level or lower throughout my childhood? Yep, so this was a treat for both of us. On one side of the throughway were mansions like I had never seen before. Big, beautiful homes. I think Kid Rock and Eminem live there now just to throw out some names.
And on the other side was the Detroit River where you could spot boat docks, I mean mini yacht docks, of the rich and famous. It was breathtaking. And one day just recently I thought to myself were we taking a drive down “memory” lane for her ( remember her secret person was very rich) or were we just site seeing. I have a memory too of driving past an ex’s home because I missed him passionately. Do you suppose that is what she was doing?
What I don’t know about my mother makes me feel so sad. As a child and young adult I was selfish and never paid attention to her dreams or her wishes. I am sad that I didn’t get to know her as a person with hopes, fantasies, and passions. I just knew her as my mom.
My advice to you is to document, to write down, to journal things about yourself to let your family members get to know you in some way. Tell them what your dreams are even though maybe you weren’t able to follow that path. Maybe you had to go with reality instead of fantasy. Let them know how many people you loved. It’s OK if you didn’t get to accomplish your dreams or all of your dreams. Share your history so that your children and your children’s children will know something about you that puts you into the realm of a real person. Some day they will be interested in their history. If you wait to long those things will be lost.
I remember my second husband’s mother was from Russia and as a very young woman worked for the Russians at a US military facility. She had numbers tattooed on her wrist, and as the story goes she met my father-in-law who later hid her and her friend when the Russians came to take back their Russian citizens. Soon afterward they married and he sent her and her friend to the States until he got out of the army.
There is an empty hole where her history has been lost. A part of her that her family wished they knew. Something she did not want to share and later could not remember. Her family does not know what her life was like back in Russian, where she lived, how she got those numbers on her arm, and much else from her early life. Now it is something that will never be shared and that is so sad.
Write your stuff down, someday someone may want to know where they came from, the people who came before, the real people and what they were like. It can help us understand parts of them, and parts of ourselves. Don’t hog your story. Share it. Don’t be ashamed! Everyone has made good and bad choices. It is part of who we are and how we survived. And as I always say, have a great day today, you and I deserve it.
