2015 has
been a difficult year at work. We have
had more people (clients, co-workers and family members) pass away in the first
month of this year than we did all last year.
It has started me thinking about legacy.
The parent I am today is building a legacy for our daughters and their
daughters and sons and their daughters and sons. A legacy build on Jesus, we are promised, will
continue.
“Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the
faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those
who love Him and keep His commandment.” Deuteronomy 7:9
I always
knew both my grandma and my grandpa had been married before. We had your typical, weird blended
family. My mom is an aunt to a niece who
is older than her. My grandma and my
aunt (her daughter) were pregnant at the same time in 1954. I didn’t know how odd that was until I got
older. My grandma never talked about her
first marriage and so it was never something that was questioned.
My grandma
was born in 1913. It was a time of one
room schools and before the 19th amendment when women gained the
right to vote (which was 1920). I cannot
imagine what that time was like and it wasn’t something we ever discussed. She always said she forgot.
When I was
little we had to make a family tree for school.
There is some deep desire I have to find out my ancestry. I can remember my grandfather teaching me
German and telling me stories of his childhood, speaking only German until he
started school. Every time I tried to go
back in my grandma’s family, she would tell me that her father was adopted and
so they know nothing about his ancestors.
I never
questioned either of them.
Until recently.
Maybe my age
has given me perspective. I now realize
that my grandma was an alcoholic. I’m
positive we didn’t talk about the past for a number of reasons, but mainly
because it included people we did not speak to.
My grandma cut everyone out of her life.
She had a sister. She was a child
of divorce and had a step-mother. She
had step-siblings. She has nieces and nephews. Yet, I don’t even know these people’s
names. For years I didn’t even know they
even existed.
As I looked
into the past, I start to see all the layers of my grandma.
Born in
1913.
Married in
1929, at age 15. Her husband was
22. My great-grandparents signed the
marriage certificate. We have a 15 year
old. I cannot imagine her marrying a 22
year old and signing the marriage certificate.
Then it made
sense. My grandma was 3 months pregnant
at her wedding in 1929. In July, at age
16, she gives birth to my aunt Betty.
Five days later, Betty died.
Every holiday we would take my grandma (who never learned to drive) to
the cemetery. She would spend very
little time at Betty’s grave, almost like she couldn’t stand it. Yet it was always important to go there,
clean off the space and leave flowers. Now
I see this loss very differently. In
1929, when you absolutely didn’t get pregnant outside of marriage, my
grandmother was 15 and pregnant by her 22 year old beau. Her parents signed off her marriage certificate
and at 16 she is married, gives birth and loses a child. At 16!
What kind of child was my grandma?
How on earth did she meet and hangout with, intimately, a 22 year old
boy? In 1929? What kind of parents did she have?
Three years
later, she gave birth to my aunt Donna, who was raised by my
great-grandma.
At some
point my grandma got divorced and met my grandpa at a bar. They got married, had two kids and I met her
when she was 65. My grandparents were
awesome grandparents. In retrospect, I
can see that their marriage wasn’t a marriage, it’s was an arrangement. I thought all grandparents had separate
bedrooms. I thought all grandparents
didn’t really speak to each other. See,
this is my weird family.
If you
connect the dots, my grandma was working and at the bar looking for a man,
leaving her daughter to be raised by her mother. I wonder if my grandma spent her life
grieving loss – the life she envisioned, her children, her relationships – and that
led her to drink. Did she cut people out
of her life because they reminded her of her past? Or was this some legacy that she was carrying
on?
I decided
recently to use the power of the internet to see if I could find old adoption
records on my great-grandfather. Who was
he and how did his relationship with my grandma impact him? She cut him out when he remarried. Was my grandma just throwing a tantrum or was
there something else? My great-grandpa has
a very unique name and I was positive a search would lead somewhere. I found his marriage certificate to my
great-grandma, so I had a birthplace and parent’s names, but unsure if those
were his adopted parents or his real parents.
In a matter
of seconds, I learned that my grandma wasn’t entirely truthful. Maybe it was due to the legacy my
great-grandpa left or was it another lie she made up, I’m not positive. He wasn’t adopted, like my grandma made me
believe. He was raised by his father and
a step-mother, because his mother died when he was 6. In a way he was adopted, but only by his
step-mom. He still had his biological
dad. He was an only child and didn’t
even attend his father’s funeral. I
doubt his father knew where he lived because the obituary was completely
incorrect.
Why did my
great-grandfather stop talking to his dad? Was the adoption story his or my grandma’s?
My family is
full of secrets that I am now only discovering.
I’ve been reading obituaries and hearing stories of lives well lived and
legacies. Yet, when I look to my own
family history, the legacy I have been given is one of grudges and lies.
I am so
grateful for my mom who changed our legacy, by meeting Jesus and raising me on
the foundation of Him. I praise God that
both N and I have that same foundation and are promised an inheritance and
legacy for generations. I am reminded
that not everyone is as they seem, even those we think we know so well. We are all shaped by our past.
As I uncover
more of my family’s legacy, I’m convicted to continue to rewrite that legacy. No more secrets, no more lies, but a
foundation built on the cornerstone of Jesus, the only legacy with a promise.
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