The Embrace of Family Traditions

Several years ago, I wrote on the Chart Chick blog about one of my favorite Christmas traditions (http://thechartchick.blogspot.com/2013/12/one-of-my-favorite-family-christmas.html) .  In my family, it is traditional to have English Trifle on Christmas Eve. I have British ancestry, and my Grandfather Darrell Dana loved it.  He loved all things custard and tapioca.  I get that from him.  We only have trifle on this one day of the year.  So it is really connected with Christmas to me. 

Christmas 1990 was my first Christmas away from home.  In fact, I was on the other side of the world.  My first marriage was falling apart and in those days you couldn't even call home much from so far away.  I was in the Middle East and the First Gulf War was about to break out.  It was a very stressful time.  I was lonely and it didn't seem like Christmas at all.  Some friends invited us over for Christmas Eve and when they brought out English Trifle for desert, it was like the heavens opened and the light shown down on my holiday.  It was a love note from home, from my ancestors, from the past.  Like a big warm hug.  The embrace of a Family Tradition.

When my Mom made trifle, year after year, she didn't know that she was sending that love note into the future.  But sometimes it is those little things that make those connections.  It can be those traditions and that shared history that ties us together.  Those are the pieces that make a family.  Traditions are part of the team narrative you have together.

This means so much more to me now that I have young adult children.  Next year, my eldest son will be the age I was in 1990.  All three of my kids are just about to leave the nest, and while I have them all home this Christmas, I find myself on the other side of this equation as the mother in the story. What have I done to create those bonds and establish the traditions that will bind my children to our family and fill their hearts with peace and love from us when they need it?  Like most well-intentioned mothers, I've made every mistake in the book.  And I'm trying to hug them enough right now.  But hopefully I've done enough that they will have those hugs from me in the future too.  Hopefully the right pieces will be there when they need it.

What are you doing in your family?  The holidays are a big time for traditions.  What are you doing this month to celebrate your family history and create a sense of heritage in your family?  Sometimes the best traditions are little ones that are practiced all through the year.  What will your family members have to embrace them during hard times?  Hug them now, but be intentional about the hugs you send into the future too.  My mom did, and I'm so thankful for that.

I'm bringing the trifle to our family gathering this Christmas Eve.  Thankfully my Mom and Dad will both be there and I'll get to share it with them and thank them again for this bit of light in my life.  How amazing that a simple thing like a trifle could mean so much. 

The most inspiring keynote I've ever heard

Wow Wow Wow Wow Wow.
Congratulations to Bret Peterson and Ginny Ackerson and their team at the UGA Spring Conference.  I have never seen a conference planning committee nail a keynote speaker like these people did. Paul McCarty was honestly the best keynote speaker I've ever heard. I couldn't take notes fast enough. 

Paul is a Psychology professor at BYU.  He volunteers at the Family History Center at the Utah State Prison.  I don't know if they have Family History Centers at other prisons but from what he talked about it sounds like they should.  (I'll have to look into that.)  Paul talked about the amazing rehabilitation that he sees in his work at the prison.  I had heard about this program but the stories he told were fantastic.

One of the examples he gave was a young prisoner who had been incarcerated for some serious gang activities.  Paul said he was angry all the time.  When he started doing family history research, he found out that he was descended from a Spanish prince and from some of the conquistadors.  You can imagine what that did to his self image and he reported feeling the presence of his ancestors.  Paul said he did a 180% turn in just a few weeks and was quickly involved in leadership and mentoring positions in the center. 

Like I've talked about many times here, apparently family history is helping to heal the prisoners' relationships with their mothers, their children and other members of the current families too.  No surprise there. 

Another prisoner he talked about was in prison for life without parole.  He was angry all the time and quite violent with the other prisoners.  He actually found out that his great great grandfather had been a security guard for a frontier bank and his great grand uncle had arrested Black Bart.  He was so enthralled that he actually ended up writing to some of the people back home and with permission started researching the family history of some of his victims.  He sent the information that he had found to these victims families and there was alot of healing and forgiveness that came from it. 

He said that indexing and researching family history gave the prisoners a chance to "escape from prison" and do something good in the world.   They are able to feel good for a bit and leave that guilt at the door.  It has also become a key part of the rehabilitation when these prisoners are released from prison as well.  After they are out of prison, they are encouraged to volunteer once a week at the FHC near them and they do much better when they do.  Paul said that Family History is the "key to changing an attitude of failure to a person of worth." 

That's what it is all about isn't it?  Wow wow wow wow wow. 

Mom is still Zapping me

So while I was in England to speak at the Who Do You Think You Are Live conference, I had an opportunity to go to tea with my mother at the Kensington Palace Orangrie.  It was absolutely lovely and everything you would think that tea at Kensington Palace would be. 

But while we were there, I wasn't having the wonderful experience that I should have been having.  I was frustrated with some things that had come up in life and upset that life wasn't going as I wanted it to.  I was complaining to my Mom.  I so appreciate that she is a safe place to put my trouble and she is always willing to listen. 

Well this time she turned my book around on me--perfectly executing what I have written about in Zap the Grandma Gap.  As I was complaining that the world wouldn't conform to my wishes, she sunk a parenting shot that changed my whole outlook on life. 

She talked to me about her mother.  My matriarchal grandmother suffered from Multiple Sclerosis.  She stopped walking when I started walking and was confined to a wheelchair the entire time I knew her.  She passed away just before my third child was born, making about thirty years that she patiently dealt with this horrible disease and the horrible wheelchairs that she was confined to.  Grandma dealt with it all with absolutely amazing grace. 

These are my mother's parents.  I adored my grandmother and grandfather and I am so thankful for the 30 years that I had with them before they passed.  Grandma was so patient with us, with life, and she was happy, truly happy.  I always knew she loved me very much.   One of my favorite memories of her was when we were watching TV and saw a news article about Christopher Reeve as a parapalegic.  She looked at him and shook her head and said, "I don't know how he does it."

In the midst of my complaining, Mom reminded me that Grandma's life didn't go the way she wanted it to either--but in a much bigger way.  Likewise, Grandpa wasn't able to do the things he wanted to with his wife but he loved her all the more.  Grandpa worked his whole life for United Airlines and they had free tickets anywhere when he retired.  They relished the one trip they were able to take to Europe with my uncle's help and never complained that they couldn't do more traveling. 

With Mom's gentle prompting, I decided that day that I can be happy like Grandma Dana even though life gave her something different than what she planned.  I can be happy like Grandpa Dana who thought it was a privilege to take care of Grandma.  I can be happy with my much smaller trials because I have that in my DNA. 

So again we find that the principles of using your family history to strengthen your family today work on adults.  The principles from the book even work on me.  My Mom is still zapping me.