I read about these amazing families where talent runs in the blood. Several generations of composers, dancers, or actors can be in one family. It doesn’t even have to be artistic. There can be several generations of scientist or politicians in a family. It just seems that somehow parents leave an imprint on their children. I guess that’s why so many people want to look into the DNA mapping services so that they can find out more about their families and hopefully about themselves. For me, I don’t want to know.
It isn’t that I don’t want to know the good, I just don’t want to know the bad. From what I already know, my family doesn’t come from famous people who did great things. My family are ordinary people who very possibly did some really bad things. I don’t want to have to rise above their mistakes. I just want to be me.
When I started to write, I didn’t think there was anyone else in my family that wrote. I thought it was something that came just from me. Then, yesterday, I started to remember that all my life, my father used to tell me all kinds of funny little stories. They were weird and strange, but they sparked my interest in storytelling and urban legends. I realized that this one thing in my life that I really love and identify with has been greatly influenced by my father, even though he never wrote anything in his life. I could regret that I never got a chance to tell him about it, but he wasn’t the type of person that I could have shared it with anyway. I can live with that.
The best part is how this situation is such a wonderful lesson about love. In his own way, my father really did love me. He made an impression on me and gave me a love for storytelling that will last the rest of my life. The stories he told me are ones I will always remember and cherish not because they were great stories, but because he told them to me. Our relationship wasn’t the greatest. We didn’t talk. We couldn’t talk. I learned to accept that and forgive him and love him as he was. And isn’t that what love is all about? Acceptance and forgiveness?
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
