My mother has been suggesting for the last few years that I need to write a family history. Like any good daughter, I’ve resisted. Today while I was chatting with a girlfriend, I came up with the first sentence. That was the title of this post.
Oh, my family’s history is appropriately colorful. There’s the story about my great-grandmother who left her home to travel to Oklahoma territory and never see her mother again. There’s the cork from when one of my family members would blacken his face to entertain in the Negro minstrel. There’s alcoholism and a story of what one would only call abuse, and there is, of course, a lot of love.
In short, it’s every family’s story. And it deserves to be written.
The renewed interest is my girlfriend’s fault. We chatted for a long time tonight. She was reminded of a boss who mentioned, “In a hundred years, it won’t even matter.” It was a phrase that really bothered her dad before he died, she said. How many generations would even bother to acknowledge his existence? He worried about that in his final days.
It all set me thinking, too. I’m quick to relay stories of my own childhood, but what do my children know of covered wagons and houses without bathrooms? I know these stories. I was really blessed to hear them from my great-grandmother. Our family also has stories of my husband’s uncle, and his death in World War II. Shouldn’t those be told?
I believe in history. What we forget, I am convinced, we are destined to repeat. I need to tell these stories. And so I’m going to give it a shot.
You, luckily, won’t be hearing them often. Just know that as usual, I am up to something. I expect it to take me while. Don’t be surprised if one pops up now and then.
You deserve to be warned.
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