I continue to struggle with trying to remain positive amidst the chaos we are living in now. And as I’ve said a zillion times on this blog, I just don’t understand why the GOP-ers that still have a conscience don’t speak out against what is happening. I guess I will never understand. In the meantime, we all hold our breath wondering what the felon will do next. It is exhausting to say the least.
As I have gotten older, I have started thinking more and more about my own mortality. To be honest, most of the time it frightens me a little, but there are a few moments when I am at ease with it all. With all of this swirling in my head, I decided to order a DNA kit from ancestry.com. I also signed up for their family tree option too. My kit hasn’t arrived yet, but I have begun building my family tree. I have actually enjoyed the process. I discovered that my great-great grandfather on my father’s side of the family was born in Ontario, Canada. In addition, I discovered that my other great-great grandfather on my father’s side was also born in Ontario as well.
I had just read that the Canadian government had changed their citizenship rules and that if one could prove ancestry past a grandparent, even with more than one generation, you could apply for citizenship. Sadly, though, I cannot find birth certificates to prove it. One of my great-great grandparents was born in 1812. That seems to far away time wise, but as I did more research, I found that my great-grandfather was his last child, born when his father was 65. He was the last child of 12! The last four were from his second wife, who was much younger. This great-grand parent was born in the town where I grew up. He died in 1937. I will continue to look into it, but my hopes for Canadian citizenship faces hurdles. I am no spring chicken, and it sounds like it would take years for all of this to happen. But I will keep digging.
When I was telling this to Michael, I was all excited about discovering my roots. When my father died in 1992 unexpectedly, my grandmother told me all about our family, and that a lot of them emigrated from Canada looking for work in the logging industry. So I knew I had Canadian ancestry, I had just never researched it until last week. Michael got a very funny look on his face and said simply, “I can never search for my roots, as most of my ancestors were gassed during World War II. He didn’t say it to quell my excitement, he stated it simply as a fact. That really hit me. I had thought of it before, but never in the context of how it compared to my own family tree.
This past weekend, we worked on (finally!) getting pictures up around the house. Our pictures had been in stacks against the different walls of our house for a long time. Michael is an architect and is very exacting when hanging pictures. I am very random. I don’t measure anything, and just do it. If it doesn’t work, I move it. I know his way is best, but I am who I am. So that’s one of the major reasons no photos have been hung as I know if I do it, the randomness would drive him over the edge.
There was one we were hanging on Saturday and he told me that it needed to go over the sofa in the den. I had seen it before, but I had never really “seen it.” It was a painting that his two great aunts had done for their sister (Michael’s grandmother) who had left Poland for the United States in 1928. There were photos of both aunts on either side of the painting. They both were killed during World War II along with their entire families. As he was telling me this, I could feel my eyes burn with tears, but I held them in. When Michael was finished telling me about them, I turned and busied myself with the next picture to hang. And then the tears fell.
How can humans be so incredibly stupid and cruel? I guess I will never have an answer to that, just like I will never have an answer to why people still support the orange felon after all of the stupid and cruel things that he has done. I was going to take a photo of this painting, but I have decided against it as it is not my history to share. Instead, I will end this post with a photo of azaleas blooming in our backyard as well as a closeup shot of a dogwood bloom.
~”I think spring is inside me. I feel spring awakening, I feel it in my entire body and soul. I have to force myself to act normally”. (Anne Frank 1944)
Love to all,
Michael
















