Jesus was about thirty years old when
he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli… son
of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. Luke
3:23 & 38 (NRSV)
It was one year ago that my Dad began his decline; he dead
on April 24th. I am remembering a lot about those last few days.
Mostly about how hard it was to watch him decline and how sad I was that I
never got him to share with me the roots of our family. When it came to family
history dad was all about the now and hardly ever shared about his growing up
or his extended family. I knew his parents but they didn’t share about their
families and everyone in his family – all eleven kids and a boatload of their
kids never seemed to want to look into the past to find and claim their roots.
Some of this was generational. Some I’m sure had to do with
the hard life they lived on the Plains and Montana. I know that life was hard
for my grandparents and they were hard on their kids. A few stories trickled
out. As I have been going through dad’s accumulation of 84 years of stuff two
things have stuck with me. One is that he didn’t seem to hold on to a lot of
mementos, not many things survived from his early years and almost nothing from
his young adult life. There are only a couple pictures of him in his Navy
uniform. No ribbons, no souvenirs of Japan, the Philippines, or Korea; nothing
from his days in Alaska after his Navy service. And there is very little from
his decades of teaching. The other thing is the boxes of pictures. I mean
thousands of pictures of people and places but not from his travels. Mostly
they are of people and the people seem to be family at least they are among the
pictures of family members I recognize.
Like millions of other Americans I am interested in finding
out my roots. Where did I come from? Who did I come from? Why did they come
here? What are their stories? How has the person I am been influenced by this
ancestral DNA? What skeletons are in the family closet? What Heroes? How were
my ancestors involved in significant moments of history? How did they come to
be in the places I visited?
I have yet to delve too deeply into the multi-billion dollar
genealogy industry. My brother has gotten his feet wet. There are family
stories that have worked their way into the fabric of our lives but how true
are they really? The Overton name traces to England, a coat of arms and a
square there. It is recorded in various rolls and lists from the 10th
century on. But there seem to be several Overton families in several places so
which one or ones are my family? Anyway, back to the pictures. Few of them are
of people I recognize, fewer still have any names, dates or locations written
on them. The vast majority have no recognizable people, places or markings. They
are mostly ghosts from my past, people that are connected to me in some way but
who they are and how we are connected seems lost. And this is the point of my
Musing today, I need roots and I’m not sure I will every really be able to find
them now that my parents’ generation in my family is all but gone. I want a
connection to a past, a people, a place. I want to understand who they were,
what drove them, what challenged them and why they made the choices they did.
But I’m afraid that what I want cannot be found among tombstones and
immigration records. I’m also afraid that my children and grandchildren will feel
they too do not have roots.
I don’t think actual photography’s will be around for them
to sort. Digital images stored on disks, flash drives and devices will replace
them. But the content of the pictures, who the people are, where they are and
why that place and time might be as forgotten as the people and places in the
stacks of photos from my dad. With selfies and Instagram and Facebook and all
the rest our lives are documented in an unprecedented and fleeting way. They
will not last and most will be lost to time and storage space. Roots will likely
be as hard to discover in the future as they are for me right now.
I don’t want to go through my life feeling un-tethered,
without a sense of grounding, of roots. I am working to make sure that in
whatever way possible I create roots for my kids and I hope that this will help
them feel grounded and connected in ways I do not. Amy and I are going through
our stuff. We are tossing a lot, downsizing some and pledging to make sure
pictures have names, dates and places. We are making sure that the important
items to us are pointed out to our kids and the reason for their importance
known. It is our hope that this will aid them in finding roots and being
grounded.
I am lucky to have a passion for history and willingness to
research and explore so that as time goes on I will discover and uncover all I
can about my roots. But one thing keeps be grounded in ways I don’t fully
understand, my faith, my connection to God. So with these things in mind I hope
to find roots and grounding before my days end on this earth.
I wish for you roots and grounding so that you might soar!
Dear God, thank you for who I am and for all those who
contributed to making me biologically, theologically and in any other way. Help
me to be grounded in you. Help me to find the roots I need to feel grounded in
other ways. And help me to provide roots to my family even if I cannot find my own.
I offer a special prayer for all those who will never know who and where they
come from. Amen.
