If Your Momma Ain’t Intrigued, Ain’t NObody Gonna Be Intrigued!

(From The Princess Bride)

Inigo Montoya: “I do not mean to pry, but you don’t by any chance happen to have six fingers on your right hand?”

Man in Black: “Do you always start conversations this way?”

I love Inigo. He’s focused, passionate, and funny.

Intriguing,too.

Sort of like my new friend, Cathy. In just three meetings with me she has “completed” her 4-generation pedigree and is well on her way to filling in the details of the fifteen family groups.

I always give homework and rarely remember what assignment I gave. I should probably write them down? I’d be a fun teacher. My students would get away with a lot. But we’d also have fun learning, too. Exciting subjects drive themselves. Don’t you think?

Cathy has surprised me two times now by coming into the Family History Center having done hers. She’s amazing. She needs no reminders. We laughed about how tired she was. On Tuesday night we both left the Center and worked on some of her family history puzzles late into the night. She admitted that she had the next day off from work and spent the whole day looking for the link between two great grandparents with the same last name. That was the homework assignment she’d been given that she was so excited to share last night.

“You did?!” I squealed.

“Yup. I found them.” She started talking to herself as she fingered through her files, looking for the one with the goods in it while I peppered her with  distracting questions.

I switched chairs to sit at her right, explaining that I sleep on the left side of the bed, but I’m used to sitting to her right. My friend got a chuckle out of that declaration.

“You mean they were sisters?” I asked.

“That means that their great-grandchildren, one a boy and the other a girl, got married?” I looked at her, waiting.

“”They’re a few logs removed from the wood pile,” she said matter-of-factly, staring straight ahead at the computer screen. Oh, my! She makes me laugh!

 I had to get my cousins chart out to figure out what to call them. From now on it’s going to be hanging in the Center.”Cathy! Your mom and dad are third cousins!” No big deal, but really fun!

It was 8:30 and my ride  had arrived, so we wrapped things up and I went home . While unwinding on the couch, Kyle asked, “What do you DO with people there?” which he followed up with, “I have NO interest in that at all!”

To which I replied, “It’s in the stories, Kyle. You get hooked in the stories. We (Cathy and I) opened up a World War I draft registration record and found out this guy had three fingers on his left hand.”

Kyle just stared at me with a squinched up nose. Guys love blood and guts and action! The kind that Inigo Montoya delivers. I think my son was starting to get it, but he just laughed and shook his head.

But my mind was already off imagining about how it had happened.

‘Cause in the end, that’s what intrigued me the most. And if  Momma ain’t intrigued, ain’t NObody gonna be intrigued!

Ha! What intrigue have you found in your ancestors’ closets?

Are They Worth a Thousand Words to You?

“Can you get me a graduation gift?” Madeleine asked me.

By the end of the night she’d have hers and would have unknowingly given one to me at the same time.

Gifts can come in unexpected packages.

Typically I spend Tuesday nights at the Family History Center working with people on their genealogy. Last night was Madeleine’s 4th grade graduation from grade school. Yeah, they do that now. I went through the motions of getting myself there, but my eyes were on the clock while we ate and waited for the ceremony to begin.

I could never have predicted what fate had prepared for me or how deeply I’d be touched.

And then the lights went out.

The music and the slide show started as my heart stopped and tears began to flow.

I wasn’t alone in my reaction. A man had pulled up a chair diagonal to mine to sit near his wife. He was a wreck the whole night. His wife rubbed his back and whispered, “Are you okay?” often in his ear. He kept nodding a “yes”.  But he was struggling to stay composed.

So was I.

Why the tears? It took a moment of pondering, but I finally connected the dots.

It was the pictures. And the music.

Snapshots of memories organized in a slide show with “My Wish”, by Rascal Flatts playing in the background.

Photos of my little girl riding her bike with her teacher and friends from the beach to the school every day.

Shots of her playing on the playground.

One of her by herself capturing her innocence and internal beauty.

I was so moved by the adults in my daughter’s life whose compassionate service connected all of those memories to a mother’s heart. They told a story of times and a world that she and I don’t share.

They didn’t have to do what they did.

Neither do you.

You don’t have to share the stories and photos of your loved ones and/or ancestors with your family. But I promise you that it matters. Photos add a valuable dimension of our experience and understanding of those we love or of those we want to get to know better. They tell a silent tale. They truly are worth a thousand words. Now you can even record a story with your photo at Legacy Stories.

I will be forever grateful for the reminder that it’s in the stories that we connect to people, both the living and the dead. We can’t be everywhere, experiencing life as is happens with our friends and loved ones. But the life captured in those moments is priceless.

Those pictures and the stories they tell are shared through sacrifice, thoughtfulness, time, and energy that could have been devoted to many other things.

What more can I say?

My wish for you is to share the photos and stories of your loved ones.

Someone like me will thank you someday.

P.S. I never made it to the Family History Center. I was joyfully centering my heart and mind on my living family history with my daughter. I think that’s exactly where my ancestors were, too. Enjoying Madeleine!

 

• Do you love sharing photos and stories? Do you have a good system of sharing them with your family?

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“Lyrics of “My Wish”, by Rascal Flatts

I hope the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
and each road leads you where you wanna go,
and if you’re faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin’ till you find the window,
if it’s cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile.
But more than anything, more than anything…

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
and while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

I hope you never look back, but you never forget,
all the ones who love you, in the place you left,

I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,and you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God’s grace, in every mistake,
and always give more than you take.
But More than anything, yeah, more than anything…

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
and while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish. Yeah. 

My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
your dreams stay big, your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
and while you’re out there getting where you’re getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish.

Memorial Day: A Flag at Half-Staff

 

“The things that the flag stands for were created by the experiences of a great people. Everything that it stands for was written by their lives. The flag is the embodiment not of sentiment, but of history.” Woodrow Wilson

“On Memorial Day the flag is raised briskly to the top of the staff and then solemnly lowered to the half-staff position, where it remains only until noon. It is then raised to full-staff for the remainder of the day.” (WP)

A flag at half mast. Hmm. So symbolic to me. Most things are.

A life lived with ups and downs, a life cut short in death or altered by physical and/or emotional wounds, a life honored and mourned, lives blessed because of another’s sacrifice.

So many memories. So many stories.

I’ll visit my father this weekend, as I do most weekends. His military service is on my mind right now because Memorial Day is coming next Monday. Memorial Day, sad to say, has never been more to me than a day of parades  and cookouts. This year is different. I want to ask my father about his military stories. I want to sit by his bedside at the nursing home that he never leaves and ask him if he’ll tell me some stories. I want to record his voice as he tells me about the one photo I have of him at that time.

I saw it for the first time on my grandparents’ bedside table at their home on St. Thomas,VI. I remember the cool marble floor under my little girl feet, and the sounds of laughter coming from the  sunken marble bathtub just around the corner to the right of that little table. He was so handsome in his uniform. I felt humbled for a moment as I stared at him, and he stared back at me from 1955-  four years before he was married, six years before I was born.

He was 19.

How did he feel about his service? What were some of his experiences? He’s such a character! I’ll bet he has some fun memories.

When I record his story, I’ll upload it and the scanned picture into my account with Legacy Stories as a “Talking Photo”. Any family member or friend who creates a free account and becomes my friend can then hear the story as my father tells it in his own voice. Isn’t that amazing? And when he dies, and he will someday, I will permanently link that “Talking Photo” to him on my family tree on FamilySearch.org, as I will do for all of my stories and photos of my ancestors. Then anyone who finds him on FamilySearch.org will see that there’s a link to him over at Legacy Stories where there are stories, videos, and photos of him waiting to be enjoyed, learned from, and shared.

When I see the flags at half-mast next Monday, I won’t just think about  my ancestors who served and how important it is to find them, get to know them, and honor them. I’ll think of my father and how he’s still alive to tell me about his life and how grateful I am to have him around to share those memories with him. Those memories are priceless. They are part of the fabric of who he is.

Just like our country’s flag.

And I want to get to know him better.

P.S. I’ll post the picture and a link to the “Talking Photo” as soon as I get it so that you can see and hear it. Hopefully it’ll be attached to my Sunday Series!!

Family History Sunday Series 1:6 Vital Records and Archives

When the Fall arrives and the chlorophyll production wanes, vibrant colors surface and beautify the trees. I never tire of that phenomenon!

When you think about Autumn leaves I want you to be reminded of vital records that are had for each living person and that add to their story. When you throw the piles in the air be reminded of the documents that may lay piled in a relative’s attic that somebody could use to pull together someones story, filling very important gaps in their history and those that they were related to.

Family History Sunday Series 1:4 Don’t Do Your Family History Like My Six-Year-Old Mows the Lawn!

Image website: nrgspot.com

 

[The quality of the audio is getting worse! Sorry and thanks for listening!]