Never Forgotten: My Promise to Those Who Came Before Me, #TGIF #FTSF

I write about my family often.

With stories of

Bloodroots and Blood Ties,

I discovered there was such thing as a bloodroot, on one particular family hike in April.

Had you ever heard of such a thing?

I think it is a wonderful metaphor, as far as the natural world, as we are all connected, to it, and to each other.

Roots go deep and this week’s Finish the Sentence Friday is a deep one, with Kristi of

Finding Ninee

As for my own family story, I’ve discussed things like

Milestones and Siblings

and also

The Ties That Bind

–

ties, blood, roots are all common themes in my writing, as you can see.

Long ago, my family came to Canada, from living in Europe. I really don’t know that far back, especially on my mother’s side. They’ve been here longer.

It all seemed so far back in time that I didn’t know how to reach it, which has left me focused more on the events of the 20th century and the two world wars that have left their mark on the 1900s.

My father’s parents lived through World War II. My father’s mother spoke of those years often, and her childhood that proceeded them. Her thick accent and often mixed up German/English made it hard to follow a lot of the things she’d say. I would listen, focusing hard, banking on my sharp memory to be able to recall the stories and the details later on.

This was a mistake. I was only just beginning with writing back then, as an interest, and (like a person not wanting to miss something in the moment, who does not take a photo to capture the memory) I did not write down what she spoke about, as she spoke it.

There are a few occasions where my brother recorded my grandfather and his marvellous storytelling abilities. He grew up on a farm, in a small, close community. His stories, though life was likely hard in ways I can’t really understand now, his anecdotes are mostly humorous in nature, silly schoolboy pranks or things he and his brother and sister got up to.

I have plans to go back and listen to his recorded stories, to see how many I could now get down in written form, in the hopes of possibly, one day, writing a short book of his adventures. This, along with my grandmother’s diaries (which I’ve spoken of here often) are things that tie me to their lives, even now and that helps me feel closer to them, even though they are gone.

That’s how stories have made it this far, through generations, even as I sometimes doubt my plan, worrying that I am telling things someone may not have wanted. The last thing I would ever wish to do would be to misrepresent another’s words or life in any way.

I think about what my grandparents did to get through those tough years, war and hunger and fear, and I want to honour that somehow. My plans for that would be to try and write a fictional story, a novel, loosely based on their lives and that time in history. I have not figured out how to go about that yet. It seems like such a daunting project.

Then I watch documentaries and read about World War I and I wondered why I was so obsessed with that war too. I’ve decided that I can’t help imagining what my great grandparent’s lives must have been like during that time period. I know so little. I want to know so much, much much more.

When it comes to my roots I am spellbound, mesmerized, haunted by thoughts of what once was, as a direct result of where I am now, at this exact moment in time and where it is I’m going. I would not be here if it hadn’t been for them, for all of them. I just don’t want them to be forgotten, as I don’t want to be forgotten a century from now.

Born Again and Forever Grateful, #FTSF

It’s strange, when you try to imagine the people your parents were and the lives they lived before their children came into the picture. I often try to envision it, with little success. My grandmother had diaries of her life and they’re one of my most valued treasures, for several reasons, but the details, no matter how minuscule, offer a window on what my mother was like as a child and young adult, way before she knew she would one day become the parent of four children, two of whom would be born with multiple disabilities. Sounds like a carefree time to me.

🙂

Well, like how I find it odd to imagine the days on which my parents met, got married, and had each of their four children, I find it inconceivable to think of the day of my birth. I was there for that one, obviously, but I do not remember, as if I wasn’t a part of it at all.

I was born via cesarean, as my mother had given birth to my older brother and sister previously. She had a medical reason for being unable to give birth naturally. All this, on that February day in 1984, it all progressed, as to be expected.

She decided to name me Kerry, a “K” name to go along with my big sister, Kim, born two years earlier. Also, the woman who gave birth to a baby boy on the same day, in the bed next to hers, her name was “Kerry”, spelled that way. This would set me apart from most with the same name, often spelled with the more common “C”.

I retell this naming story on occasion, but I would say, along with stories of the day I was born, there would one day be joined, one about my rebirth, thirteen years later.

The day I was born was a cold February day, but the day I was reborn was warm, sunny, and in early June.

Again, I remember none of it, strictly speaking. One moment I was one girl, small and ill, and the next, I awoke to the new life of a transplant recipient. I began, after being reborn, dopey, my new world slowly coming into focus. The beeping of ICU machines gave way to the warm, fuzzy feeling of the first summer of the rest of my life.

Now, one year ahead of my twenty year kidney transplant anniversary and I mark the date, another June fifth coming up fast. Next month signifies the start of my rebirth, as is the context for this FTSF post.

It’s a strange time of year for me, truthfully. As the date passes me by I feel a mixture of gratitude and anxious discomfort, at the state of my life, looking back on all these years hence.

I take stock on how far I’ve come since June 5th, 1997 and sometimes the weight of that milestone dawns on me with such ferocity. We all hit those monumental markers in life, occasions where rebirth is exactly the word we’d use. For me, June means rebirth, as spring is rebirth for so many plants and animals. I try to highlight the date, look on the life I’ve had since then, and adjust accordingly. This is daunting, when I can’t stop assigning to myself what my life should now mean. I don’t want to toss aside the importance of what that single surgery did for me. I can’t and never will.

Rebirth means something to me now, as my birth must have meant, more than thirty years ago, to my parents. It feels like an important starting place, but as yet, I haven’t decided where that might lead.

Host and sentence-thinker-upper:

Finding Ninee

&

Corinne Rodrigues

SoCS: Dear Grandma

***

Dear Grandma,

I started this blog with an entry on my birthday and in that entry I talked about your diaries.

They are still upstairs, in the perfect chest I found for them, protection against any possible damage.

You wrote in those every night, for so many years. I tried to follow your example, many times, but always lost interest. I guess I didn’t believe I had enough to say.

I don’t feel that way anymore Grandma. In fact, it’s become quite a problem now, now that I have too much to say and I can’t stop myself.

I think what you had to say, all written by hand up in those books, I think that was all important stuff and I wish I could see to read it myself.

I remember how you used to read from your diaries, to me, at your kitchen table sometimes.

You sometimes even stumbled and had trouble reading your own writing, from so many years gone by.

You loved your ritual of writing in your diary at night. I loved that about you.

Now I don’t know if you would think it quite so good an idea, if you were still here, if you knew I wrote my blog for so many to see.

You were from a different time and you didn’t understand the Internet. From the few conversations we had about it, you didn’t seem all that impressed.

I have good reason to believe you would understand though, if you knew what it means to me to have a journal, a blog, a diary.

You knew I couldn’t write by hand anymore.

I would show you my blog, but you wouldn’t buy a computer, so I would have to print out my blogs for you to read.

I know you’d want me to. You’d ask when I saw you, if I had any more journals written since we saw each other last, because you loved reading my words.

I miss the unconditional love and acceptance you gave, that pure pride I heard in your voice when, on those rare occasions, I showed you something I’d written.

I write with you in mind, all the time, Grandma.

I want to keep a journal, a record of all the thoughts and all the experiences I’ve had since you’ve been gone, that I wish I could share with you.

I dedicate today’s stream of consciousness Saturday post to you.

Love,
Your granddaughter.

***

This was my post for this week’s SoCS, with today’s prompt, “Jour”, from:

http://lindaghill.com/2015/04/10/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-april-1115/

I didn’t feel very French today.

🙂

I thought of journal and immediately thought of my grandmother’s diaries, the ones that are my most treasured belongings, since she died ten years ago.