As I continue to research our family history and to computerize what we have already documented, I reflect again on the meaning of the sealing of families. I know that this is a process rather than an event, and I feel the connection to some I have never met, so strongly they seem to "speak" to me. I return again and again to these thoughts from the book Remembering by Wendell Berry (If you haven't read this I highly recommend it...a short read...a great story...very well written):
"That he is who he is and no one else is the result of a long choosing, chosen and chosen again. He thinks of the long dance of men and women behind him, most of whom he never knew, some he knew, two he yet knows, who, choosing one another, chose him. He thinks of the choices too, by which he chose himself as he now is. How many choices, how much chance, how much error, how much hope have made that place and people that, in turn, made him? He does not know. He knows that some who might have left chose to stay, and that some who did leave chose to return, and he is one of them. Those choices have formed in time and place the pattern of a membership that chose him, yet left him free until he should choose it, which he did once, and now has done again."
Another thought by Mrs. Ira A. Eastman:
"A gift of gifts, this lineage old,
More precious far than gifts of gold;
A precious gift, these links that bind
The lives before with lives behind."
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I took your advice. This story brought me tears. I researched Berry a little before getting the book. This is a nice summary: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=540
I am not usually fond of contemporary authors, but I will read more of his stories - plus he is a poet ;-)
I like how Andy is disillusioned with the spiritual dismemberment of the people in society (hints at the literal dismembering - his hand - and how it triggered the feelings of loss) I thought more about the land, nature, foundation brings us back to our beginning (i.e., when he heads East) and often to our family, our roots.
One literary summary that caught my eye was Andy (much like Dante in The Divine Comedy, pursues the difficult hope (like most of us); Difficult hope, but possible.
I don't mean to ramble. I was very touched by the story and moved by your thoughts on family. Thank you for sharing.
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