Being part of the extended family

Today is the provincial public holiday for the province where I grew up, celebrating its founding day, as well as the nation’s. It’s the province where my family put down roots, when they came across the world from Ireland and the UK. A predominantly farming province, it is flanked on the west by high, snowy mountains (higher than anything in the UK or Ireland), ranges of foothills, and then green plains that run down to the Pacific Ocean. It has been terraformed to look a lot (I imagine, I haven’t been yet) like Ireland and England – green pastures, hedges, dotted with crops, sheep and cattle. But it wouldn’t have been like that when my ancestors arrived. It would have been blanketed with native bush, and now only a few reserves remain. The birdsong would have been loud and vibrant and totally foreign to the arrivals. It’s hard to imagine how they would have felt.

My great great grandfather came out to South Canterbury from Ireland, shortly after the Irish Potato Famine. He left from a little farm near Tralee, in an area called Ballymacelligott. I only recently learned this. I’m hoping to learn a lot more. Loribeth’s webinar with Michael Hughes for World Childless Week has inspired me. We don’t need to have kids to think about our families, their history, OR their future. We don’t need to have kids to be interested in everyone’s past and future. We just need to be human, and curious. I think that's easier for us to understand than those who focus so heavily on their children and their immediate families.

So often I find that childless women (especially women) are the ones who keep their families together, in touch with each other, or who research the family history for the benefit of the future generations. There are a lot of reasons why we do it. But I wonder how often it is appreciated by other family members, or whether they understand the tiny degree of pain we might feel when we know we’re contributing to a family that might soon forget us. What does being part of a family really mean to them?

 

Family trees when childless

Today's post will be a true microblog. My brother-in-law stayed with us last night, passing through the city from a fishing trip with his brother. We enjoyed his line-caught fresh blue cod from the waters of Cook Strait where he spent the last week, a bottle (or two) of delicious wine, and lots of interesting conversation. 

In the course of conversation, we got into family backgrounds, and he told a fascinating story of an ancestor involving Napoleon Bonaparte amongst others. But his story finished with the surprise that it was the brother of his ancestor with the same first name, not the direct ancestor.

It reminded me of all the episodes of genealogy shows I have watched that focused on an interesting ancestor who was the cousin or brother or sister of the subject's direct ancestor. It was a good reminder again of how we don't have to have direct descendants to be interesting, to be remembered, or even thought about. Or - alternatively - that you don't have to be childless to be forgotten. In other words, I think that it all (largely) evens out in the end.

We are now enough

This post is inspired by the following quote, written by Nora, in a guest post on Lisa’s Life Without Baby:

Somebody related the question of motherhood to a form of immortality, and said it is viable through creating children or something else of lasting value, like art.

Continuing the family line is a common reason for having children, and the feeling that our line ends with us is often a source of grief and loss for those of us without children. I’ve felt it, though I have to admit that (mostly) I don’t feel it any more. The need to compensate for this, ie, through the creation of art or something else of lasting value, is not uncommon, and goes hand in hand with the search for the Next Big Thing. If we can’t be parents, we figure that we have to do something else in our lives that has a similar impact – for a while.

Ultimately, though, I’ve realised how much of this quest for immortality is also all about ego, the selfish (but all too common) desire to have your particular DNA carried into the future, or to see your name at the top of a family tree. And this immortality only lasts for one or two generations, but rarely much beyond this. The truth is that what matters is now, and right now, we are enough, we are all enough, no matter what we create.

The Keepers of Memories

I now have no-one living anchoring me to the past, but no-one anchoring me to the future either. You might think that I would feel cast adrift, lost and alone, but I don’t. Even through the stress of my mother’s last days, and of the funeral and its aftermath, I was surrounded by family, by sisters and brothers-in-law, by nieces ranging from a mere seven to a worldly thirty-six years old, by N, a cheeky and much-loved great-nephew, who at such a young age knows and understands loss himself (having lost his Dad not quite two years ago), by the husbands and partners of my nieces, and by little P (whose Dad loves N's mother). He too had lost his own mother, and I was conscious of that as he said so sweetly and sincerely, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I love them all dearly.

As we sorted through my mother’s things, I realised I was fast becoming the “Keeper of Documents.” My cousin D (also without children after loss, and an only child so no nieces or nephews either) found herself taking some family things too, because she felt they should be kept. Another cousin also without children is the family genealogist (although I am always forgetting to raise that with her). Cousin D wondered aloud,

“are the childless the Keepers of Memories because we look back, not forward?”

I thought about it, and agree that it is possible this is the reason. Perhaps we look back simply because we have the time to do so. But I prefer to think that, as keepers of memories, we’re doing it out of love and a feeling of connection, a belief that the past will matter to the future. That without the past, there is no future, even if personally, I am not going to be part of that future. 

And so I took great pleasure in seeing things pass down, my littlest niece inherit the cute little rabbit figurines I remember so well from the mantelpiece when I grew up. I was thrilled to see a medal from my great-uncle go to my great-nephew. With no skin in the game, I was keen to see certain sentimental items stay together, rather than any motivation to ensure that my child wasn't missing out. But more important, I was happy to see that the family treasures and memories were valued, and would continue to be valued.

Ultimately, I prefer to think that we’re the Keepers of Memories because we know how precious they are, how easily people and memories can be lost, and that once they’re gone, they’re gone. That it’s not always about the family tree, but more about the memories and connections and links.

My cousin stayed for several days, not because we are cousins, but because she thinks of me and my two sisters as her surrogate sisters, because she loved my mother, because she has fond memories of spending time with our family during her childhood. She was there because of shared experiences, and a need to maintain and nurture those connections that have been there all our lives.

I hope that one day, one of my nieces will become a Keeper of Memories. I suspect I can guess which one, but I won’t name her and put that burden on her now. I know that when she comes to do it, when it comes naturally, it won’t be a burden – whether she has children, or not.

Where did I come from?

I’ve always been mildly interested in genealogy.  Growing up I knew that I had Welsh, Scottish and Irish ancestry, with a bit of Prussian and French thrown in as well.  I’ve shown interest when cousins or others have put together family trees, especially when it involved discovering towns back in the old country where my ancestors came from, all those years ago.  But I've never researched genealogy myself, always thinking it could be something I could do in my retirement, as I've watched my father-in-law do.

And then we learned with finality that we would never have children of our own.  It became starkly obvious, as my father-in-law developed the family tree in more and more detail, that we were the branch that went nowhere, that we had little or no significance on my husband's family tree.  Any discussions about it were painful.  As it became more and more detailed  - showing additions of the latest generation, of cousin's children's children - we felt left behind and even more insignificant.  The actual illustration of the tree showed in graphic terms our branch that was going nowhere.  We could be erased from the tree and it would make no difference.  Of course my father-in-law is oblivious, and thinks we are fascinated to learn about all these new additions to the family.  He enjoys looking forward, thinking about the new branches on those trees, the people coming behind him.  Those with children (and grandchildren) have no idea of the pain that a family tree with a stunted branch - our branch - can give those of us who are childless not by choice.

When my father died, some of the knowledge of my own family went with him.  Since then, his sister (the repository of much extended family information) has also died, and now my mother's memory is failing, and I know there will be things about my family that I will never know.   The words "too late" now have real meaning, and I find that very sad.  But then I become quite callous.  I remember my father, and the stories he told me, and the way he told them.  These are what is important.  Does it matter that I don't know much more?  After all, I have no-one to pass on these stories to.  Perhaps I can just wash my hands of all this?  

(And to be honest - and potentially controversial I know - I always find family trees slightly replusive for the fact that at the top, there are always just two people, but dozens fill the bottom of the tree.)

 

Then last year, my husband and I were considering a visit to Ireland or Scotland.  My enthusiasm for genealogy was briefly rekindled (until the trip was cancelled).  I wanted to know more, so that we could visit with a little knowledge, a little awareness of where I came from, so that we could visit places with relevance to my history.  Thinking about where I come from, where my parents' parents' grandparents came from, fascinates me.   As a keen traveller, I have often reflected on the bravery of my ancestors, setting out to a country as far away from them as anywhere on Earth, saying goodbye to family and friends forever, to establish a new life in an unknown environment.  I'd like to see where they started their journeys.  So I've decided to contact a cousin who is researching my mother's side of the family.  (Ironically, she is also childless).  I know that as long as I can look back, and not forward, I can handle genealogy.  Just don't ask me to keep an up-to-date family tree.