Past.present.future ... Right here, right now!
I saw their faces with new eyes, saw in them the pieces of the past, tiny family fragments all meshed together in wonderful humanity. I thought about my Great grandfather setting sail from Sweden in 1900 and wondered if he realised the significance of his journey, wondered if he ever imagined the trail of hope that he was forging, or if he contemplated the loss to come. His journey could not have been easy, how does one leave everything they know for a place so completely unknown? Was New Zealand his destination or only where he ended up?
Was it just the last stop at the bottom of the world?
This week I contemplated the stories told by family only just acquainted, allowed the fragments of others memories to form images in my head of family never met. I gratefully welcomed each morsel of information allowing it to connect me with the past. I imagined the love that grew in tough terrain. I use to wonder as a child what it would be like to have grandparents, wondered if it mattered that you grew up with missing pieces inside you. How did that kind of disconnection shape you? Did knowing your heritage make it easier to know who you are and why you are here? The questions of childhood pressed deep during the searching years.
Did it matter that your past seemed to have disappeared?
Now, two years on from the beginning of my quest, the knowing brings answers ... and more questions. Having known so little growing up, I always wanted to know more, especially now as a mother. It is this realisation that hits me now as I type. This blog is an extension of that, a longing to put the pieces together, to tell a story and frame a picture - to piece together the past, the present and the future and map out a path that ties it all together. I am compelled to make sense of the stories, the lives, the hopes and the fears, if only for my children.
Our stories matter!
This reach from the past pushes me forward, requires me to unearth answers for my children as I watch them begin to sort their realities and make sense of the world they will inherit. As they question their significance and grapple with purpose, there is comfort in knowing that brave souls have gone before. But, the truth is brave souls are born every day!
The momentum of time edges us closer to the inception of more.
Returning to the place of my birth took me back to the beginning ... and it is in this that I realise that a beginning never ends. Every beginning creates more beginnings ... every day is new, every life a start, every opportunity full of purpose ... each beginning is the point for something new to spring forth, the axes of intentional origin and the coordinates for moving on.
