Good
Ancestor/Bad Ancestor
“Now
I realize that the ancestors are my lifeblood. We are all made of the ancestors
who came before us, those who bore us and those who bore them, all the way back
through the generations to Great-Grandmother and Great-Grandfather Amoeba. Some
of our ancestors may not be admirable people, but we came from them, too,
whether we like them or not.”
Susan
Moon (“We Will Be Ancestors, Too,” Parabola, Summer 2022, p. 59)
I’ve
been thinking a lot about ancestors and the genetics within us, that make us
who we are. I think the approach of the holidays pushes those thoughts up to
the surface because many of us will be celebrating with family. Anticipation
can bring past holidays into focus and either scrape the scabs off old wounds or
produce a happy mood. There is always a “difficult person” in the mix. It may
be the same person every year, or a toss-up according to who’s in a nasty mood.
We all
have a few ancestors in our woodpile who we wish had not procreated, or that
they belonged to some other family. I can think of a few. But, as Susan Moon
points out, they belong to us, too. It behooves us to find something about them
we can like, or else work hard not to allow their genes to activate in us. As I’ve
said before, alcoholism plays a heavy role in my family, and in my original
family it ran like a raging river through the male ranks. All the women were “tee-totalers”
except for my mother, who at one point, decided the throw caution to the wind and
see what all the fuss was about. For a while there, she seemed to like wine
quite a bit, especially when mixed with Valium. Oh, lord! Now that I think
about it, that was an extremely difficult period! Fortunately for everyone, it
didn’t last long.
Susan
Moon brings up the fact that not everyone knows who their biological family is,
and that our ancestors should extend to all those who helped to raise us, who
influenced our lives—good or bad. She says, “we come not only from blood ancestors
but also from the people who raised us, who taught us to look both ways before
we crossed the street and how to tie our shoes.” (Parabola, p. 59) I take
comfort in the fact that Mrs. Kidd, my senior English teacher, falls into that
camp, but would like to erase the fact that Great-Uncle So-and-So, the
girl-groper, does too.
It’s a
good idea to approach the holiday meals with a sense of humor. Having an
attitude of acceptance and tolerance is a bit like cranberry sauce; it’s a nice
compliment to the turkey and dressing. Consider the story factor—this is the
story of your life. All these folks have left their imprint on you, even if
some of those imprints are smudged. Take notes, ask questions, dig up facts
that only they possess and will share with you if you let them. Susan Moon says
that we can understand many things, but to go beyond our individual abilities
and intelligence, we must also have “grand-mother mind, the mind of great
compassion.” After all, we will be someone else’s ancestors one day. I don’t
know about you, but I don’t have a perfect record. I suspect that my imprint
will be a bit smudged. So, I ask you, what sort of imprint will you leave?
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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