[Granville-Hough] 1 Jun 2009 - We are the Chosen

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:42:49 -0700
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: We Are the Chosen - 1 June 2009

      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 story tellers 
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 to tell their 
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 story tellers.

    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.

    Authorship - unknown