My DNA Remembers.
Somehow I ended up on the path to my ancestors. I didn’t plan it. I just stumbled into it a few weeks ago when a ‘hint’ from Ancestry.com was sent to my email. For some reason I bit at it. I suppose there is, due to recent events in my life, some melancholy familial residue lingering lightly on everything I touch. But I am dusting as I go, aiming to dwell in peace, emotional wellbeing, and cognitive power. But while aiming, I ran smack dab into an onslaught of ancestors.
I come from a small family of separatists. I was raised with my sister and brother as a middle child. My mother had four older children whom I sporadically saw only a handful of times in my entire life, one brother I saw more. My father had a daughter who was much older than us as well. I think I only saw her twice. The brother with whom I was raised, is estranged without conflict. Therefore, I am estranged from all of my siblings except for one younger sister. And some of the older siblings are even estranged from one another.
My father came from a very large family with 11 children. He and all of his siblings are now deceased except for one whom I am not sure about. I never had a sustained relationship with any of my paternal uncles, aunts, or cousins—and I am not sure why. I have fond memories of family reunions in big Chicago parks. And visiting my paternal grandmother’s home in East St. Louis, kitty corner from Ike Turner’s. But it didn’t last.
My mother had only one sibling, a sister, who is living. My only maternal aunt and I have enjoyed a cordial but not close relationship over the years but did not bond deeply or build upon the bond we established when I was very young. As a result, I’ve had little connectivity with my maternal cousins.
I have two children, one with whom I am sharing a hiatus. That hiatus extends to my two grandsons by default, with whom I have enjoyed a wonderful and bonded relationship. So out of all of my family on this planet, I am in a relationship with my son, my husband, my younger sister, and her young adult children. I have some extended family in law, and I have relationships wherein I am considered and treated like family. So, in my tiny familial world, I oddly do not feel deeply saddened or lonely. I almost feel like this is just kinda how my family history is. I take it as being neither good nor bad. Mostly I am spiritually and soulularly neutral in this space.
But to let Ancestry.com tell it, I should be swamped in familial bonds with all of my DNA that has and does walk this earth. I found well over 200 grandparents – over 6,000 relatives in all, dating back to the early 1400’s. All these people whose proof of resilience and survival is my very existence. Unbelievable stories. Unbelievable grief. Dead ends met at slave inventories that paused my finger mid-air, not wanting to click. Beautiful cousins, uncles, and aunts serving as activists, politicians, ministers, orators, teachers, attorneys, servicemen, horticulturalists, and physicians determined to rise and bring folks together. Disruptors, antagonists, colonists, ship captains, and opportunists, some who meekly sought a better life or sadly and violently capitalized no matter the cost to their fellowman. Surprising cousins such as Elvis, the Baldwin brothers, and President Rutherford B. Hayes. Inventors. Grandmothers who died in childbirth. And royalty.
But what does all that even mean? I still don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. Identifying thousands of kin folk cannot possibly validate my existence or importance, nor make me more alive—not that I needed them to. But I am being driven to search for family, fully aware that the accumulation of their life experiences are too vast for me to ever know. As I search, I realize there may be an emptiness inside me. Perhaps it is mostly curiosity. But I have found relief that I am swamped in familial bonds. I am content that in my teeny, tiny, physical family, I am accompanied by thousands. I am woven into this planet with purpose. The Earth is my witness and knows my story that even now, that I cannot tell but my DNA remembers on my behalf.
In closing this blog post, one last thought itched my brain. I have countless relatives breathing air on this planet now with whom I reciprocally share so little and do not know. This fact is juxtaposed against an archive of ancestors in whom I have interest but whom I can never know. The pondering of these two thoughts shifts me comfortably back into the present moment, into the comfort of now, and how my family wired me to be here in the fewer relationships I have –where teeny, tiny can still be abundant.
I suppose we are all like different confections in a bakery, all made with a different recipe, with different ingredients, with different measurements of those ingredients, and with substitutions as needed. Our flavor was determined by every ancestral ingredient—bitter or sweet. We, the finished product, cannot determine all of what went into us to make us who we are, but everyday those around us get to taste the product. And those who can relate to us, are our relatives or become a part of our tribe. And for that, I am grateful.
Love, Peace, Focus, and Progress,
Tracey Alexandria Lynch
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