Family Ties

Lately I've become more curious about my family's history.  I think it's something about growing up and entering the "adult world," so to speak...I'm kind of beginning to see my extended family members as people with an entire life history, instead of just MY grandparents, aunt, uncle, etc.

The seeds of this fascination started earlier this year, when my Dad forwarded me a picture that my aunt had found of my grandmother at my age.  In this picture, the family became aware of my striking resemblance to my grandmother - the same curly hair, the same smile, the same nose.  I even have a touch of my grandmother's redness of hair that appears in selectivity in the summer months.  It's kind of remarkable.  If you're friends with me on Facebook you will have seen the picture, since it was my profile picture for most of the last few months.  If not, here it is, juxtaposed with my senior AOII composite photo (making my grandmother 19 and myself 21 in these images):

I'm ashamed to say that, before coming across this picture, I never really thought much about my grandmother as a young adult.  Of course, there had been snippets of family stories here and there, but since my sister and I grew up in Missouri and the extended family mostly remained in my parents' hometown in West Virginia, I wasn't necessarily raised on the family stories.  At least, not my grandparents'.  I could tell you all kinds of things about my parents' high school years.  But that's another story.

Anyway, over the last couple of months my interest in my family history has grown.  Call it the proverbial quest of a young woman to get in touch with her roots, because at its essence that's what it is.  Little by little, without any effort on my part, pieces of my grandparents' past have been slipping into my life...in addition to the portrait of my grandmother I already mentioned, a photo (posted to Facebook by an aunt) of my maternal grandparents standing on a porch in their own young adulthood, smiling at each other, completely unaware of their life as I know it...

Or a letter that my great-grandfather sent to my grandfather while he was serving in World War II that, like many letters to soldiers during that time, never reached its recipient...a letter collected by some WWII buff who recently passed away, and which his daughter, upon going through his things, took the initiative to connect with my family, placing the letter in my grandmother's hands, three years after my grandfather's death and sixty-nine years after it was written...a letter which, decades after its time, reveals a hidden undercurrent of love and pride in a father-son relationship that was generally unspoken of because of its rocky and unfriendly nature...

And, an even more direct way to connect with my family: a published memoir, written by my great aunt, Nina Holland), who after enduring the death of a child and of her husband, left the United States at age 57 to become a missionary to the Philippines.  The book, called "Children, The Creek Runs On," has sat on some shelf or other around my house for the last seven years, and since I'm likely serving as an intern in a Filipino church next year, I asked my mom to search it out for me, and yesterday read through several passages of it.  It's a unique experience to read in published print the life story of a family member.  I only met Nina one time, and I was about 3 years old and probably more interested in getting this unfamiliar woman out of my house than anything else.  But as I flipped idly through the pages, story after story grabbed my attention as I read of this tall, 57-year-old American woman, my grandfather's sister, who left behind everything she knew and traveled halfway around the world because she believed God wanted her to.  That journey would lead her into face-to-face encounters with multiple cobras, but would also allow her to help other people in vital ways, both physically and spiritually.

My Aunt Nina wrote these words in the preface to her book - "If there is anything noteworthy or anything exceptional in my life, it is because of God’s hand that has led me and sustained me through the years."  Even so, in reflecting on her life, she wrote these words, that I found extremely comforting and encouraging as I face my own struggles in a world away from the familiar (albeit closer than the Philippines): "I know what is between the lines of these letters that I wrote home.  Only I can know the times of homesickness, uncertainties, and discouragements.  But, it is also only I who knows of the great experiences, the joys, and the quiet peace of being where I felt God wanted me to be."  To read of such faith in the face of hardship was quite likely the best thing that I could choose to read at this point in my life, where homesickness, loneliness, uncertainty, and doubt threaten to consume me on a daily basis.  To read of such faith in the words of a family member, and to be so inspired by them, was a privilege.

Still, there is much more to be learned about my family.  Take, for example, this conversation which ensued between my mother and myself today:

Me - So I read Aunt Nina's book last night.
Mom - The whole thing?
Me - No, I just skimmed most of it, and read the sections about the Philippines.
Mom - How'd you like it?
Me - (babble about how the book was enjoyable)
Mom - I'm glad.  That's cool how you're going to work with Filipinos next year too.  I think I'll write to Aunt Nina about you.
Me - AUNT NINA'S ALIVE?????


Yes, all that time that I was reading and being inspired by those words, I thought that I was reading the words of a great-aunt who had passed away.  Not so.  Aunt Nina is apparently still alive and well, living in the hills of West Virginia where she grew up before her Filipino adventures and to which she eventually returned.

Like I said...still a lot to learn about the family :)