So, I just got back from spending three days with some of my relatives on my mother's side of the family. Before that, I spent a week with my aunt and uncle on my dad's side of the family. They were both really great trips, but the second trip, the one to Georgia to see my kin, was very special. It took me a while to figure out why, and I'm still working on it, but one of the things I've concluded is that sometimes love is genetic.
Let's begin awhile back. My mother was the oldest of five kids. My grandfather worked very hard, and his jobs took him away from his ancestral home of Tallapoosa, Georgia. My grandfather was a complex man; he was very intelligent, very educated, very focused, and very dedicated to certain things in his life. He took care of his family the best he knew how, and always provided for them. He was a World War II veteran who was a medic in both the European and Pacific theaters, something that was very unusual. He was the first person in his family to graduate from college. He took care of his mother until she passed away, shortly after he graduated from high school.
My grandfather was also a good ol' boy in the worst sense of the word. He was racist. He often saw women as second-class citizens. And he was one of the most stubborn people I ever met. He always lived in another state due to his job as a chemical engineer, so I never got to know him well, but I enjoyed his company and his stories. He was a very interesting man. After my grandmother passed away in 1984, though, we didn't see him so much. My ma didn't seem to get along with him very well.
One of the reasons my mother and her father butted heads so often is because they were so much alike. They were both smart, and they both knew what they wanted. However, my grandfather didn't give my mother many choices in life. He said she would go to college, and he told her where to go to college, and she didn't take too kindly to being told to do that. She would have chosen those things for herself anyway, but it was the fact that my grandfather told her she was going to do it that put her off. My ma also didn't like the way my grandfather treated my grandmother. My grandparents were raised in a generation and in places where wives were meant to serve their husbands. I think they both accepted those roles, but my mother did not. Already long story short, my mother tried to distance herself from her father. And in doing so, I lost contact with that whole side of the family.
Through the magic of Facebook, oddly enough, I reconnected with my aunt and my uncle, my ma's younger siblings. Through them, I connected with my second cousin Elizabeth, who then connected me to her daughter Michelle. I had fun talking to my aunt and uncle and cousins, and it made feel like I was part of something again. I have a large extended family, but they always lived far away, and consequently I am only close to three of my cousins and my aunt and uncle on my dad's side. I felt disconnected. Growing up, all my friends talked about weekends and holidays spent with grandmothers and grandfathers and aunts and uncles and cousins, and it was loud and crazy and fun. And I was jealous. I wanted that too. But it was not to be.
I posted some old family photos on Facebook, and Elizabeth showed them to her parents, George and Jane. George is my ma's first cousin, and I remembered her speaking of him, very favorably. Even though they seemed to get along, I think my mother subconsciously separated herself from anything that had to do with my grandfather's side of the family, and in doing so, separated me from that too. She didn't mean to deny me anything, and I don't hold a grudge. It's just what happened. But one thing led to another, and I found myself on the phone with George, talking and talking and talking. And a miraculous thing happened: I had a big family.
This family welcomed me and my daughter and my husband with open arms. George and I talk on the phone, and he told me all about our family's history, how we originally came from Scotland and Germany, and how we have Cherokee blood in our family, how my great-grandfather was a poor sharecropper who did whatever was necessary to put food on the table for his family, how they all stuck together through good times and bad. He told me things I yearned to know: names, relationships, places. And for the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged somewhere.
George was in the hospital a few weeks back, and I decided I was going to visit. My daughter and I went down to Georgia, and I walked into a home that was as warm and loving as the one I grew up in. George and Jane opened their homes and hearts to us, even though we had never met in person. George and I stayed up way too late each night, watching baseball and talking about family. The whole family came over for dinner, and I got to meet my cousins and their children that I had only heard about, and they welcomed me too, as one of their own. And I felt whole.
The day we left, I cried every time I looked at George. I didn't want to leave. He didn't want me to leave either. Even though it was the first time we met, and we only were together for 3 days, I felt I had known him all my life, the grandfather I never had. And he understood me and where I was coming from. And that's what was so special - that instantaneous understanding and love. It has to be genetic, that love that was passed down somehow from our common ancestors. I don't understand, but I'm so glad I found it.
That three day trip changed my life. I feel more complete now. George said something while I was there that struck me: "Sally, I've found that there are three important things in life: God, family, and friends." And he's right. I've got all three, and I am a lucky, lucky woman.
