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This poem was on the rootsweb
Howard list and I thought you might enjoy it.
Bobby
We Are The Chosen
We are the chosen. In each
family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh
on their bones and make them live again, to tell the family story and to
feel that somehow they know and approve.
Doing genealogy is not a cold
gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone
before. We are the storytellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We
have been called, as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry
out to us, "Tell our story!" So, we do.
In finding them, we somehow
find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I
have lost count. How many times have I told the ancestors, "You have a
wonderful family; you would be proud of us." How many times have I walked
up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say.
It goes beyond just
documenting facts. It goes to who am I and why do I do the things I do.
It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and
indifference and saying, "I can't let this happen." The bones here are
bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about
it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish, how
they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their
hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, their
resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family.
It goes to deep pride that
the fathers fought and some died to make and keep us a Nation. It goes to
a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us. It is of
equal pride and love that our mothers struggled to give us birth. Without
them we could not exist, and so we love each one, as far back as we can
reach.
That we might be born who we
are. That we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and
scribing each fact of their existence, because we are they and they are the
sum of who we are. So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family.
It is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and
take my place in the long line of family storytellers.
That is why I do my family
genealogy, and that is what calls those young and old to step up and restore
the memory or greet those whom we had never known before.
Author Unknown |
