I am one of those people who believes we are all genetically born with certain behavioral predispositions and predilections. I still believe in free will! I don't believe these born-with desires determine our choice and behaviors, they just influence them.
I was born with a profound appreciation and affection for family. It is in my blood. It is in my soul. I have always loved visiting relatives, and this was noticeable even when I was very young, I couldn't wait to visit family, and didn't want to leave after visiting. I was happy. Everyone one else seemed happy. The adults seemed happy. The kids seemed happy. I felt loved.
When I was little we were blessed to have my mom's parents and two sisters and their families living within driving distance of our home in northern California. But since my Dad was a Nebraska transplant the bulk of his relatives were back in Nebraska. He grew up in a family of nine kids and seven close cousins, and each of them having families of their own. So in the summer of 1968 we packed up the old blue Ford station wagon and drove the short 1677 miles from Fremont, California to Dix, Nebraska for a Walker family reunion. I was in heaven, pure heaven. There must have been forty of us, everyone was smiling, and laughing, and having a great time!
Late that evening, as my eyelids grew heavy, my Dad's cousin Bob Wistrom scooped me up into his arms and carried me to the car. I started to cry. Bob said "What's the matter?" I said "I don't want to leave!" Bob's eyes welled with tears and he dried the tears on my cheek with the back of his hand. And we drove the long, long 2000 miles home.
This experience had a huge effect on me. The value of family grew even more in my heart and never wavered. But as time passed, things happened, things change, as they always do. My Dad started with two brothers in California, but one passed, and the other moved to Arizona. My Mom's family started out close, but they too began to spread out, chasing their own dreams, and their own predilections. Even my parents and brother moved, and then, after growing up and marrying, so did I. This was my curse -- no family close, anywhere.
But it did not stop. Soon my grandparents' generation passed on. Then my parents. I had two kids, and then as is normal, they got married and had kids and moved. And now I am the grandparent, and my curse continues. I only see my immediate family once or twice a year. And my extended family? Well, we talk on Facebook. That is about the extent of it.
"Kevin, why do you do genealogy?" This is why -- to defeat my curse. To fill my familial love tank. I feel love for, and dare I say, even love from every ancestor I find. I knew none of our ancestors' names, none of my family did. My contemporary relatives were all getting the love they needed from each other, there was no pragmatic rationale to look back at their roots, beyond curiosity.
But I am different. I am uncovering our ghosts, waking them up and giving them new life. Finding their images, cleaning them off. Telling their histories, both good and bad. I can feel their familial love filling up my tank, as their names and stories, that were covered in decades and centuries of darkness, get to see the light of day.
My predisposition and predilection for family drives me to fight off a curse of familial loneliness. I am selfish that way. But I can sense the smiles of my long dead relatives, as they are remembered for whatever reason.
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin W. Walker
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