Friday, January 22, 2021

father

 It`s nearly 4 years since my father died. The last time I blogged was pre-pandemic. I have drafts littering my dashboard...in progress, or incomplete.

I had a complicated relationship with my father. I think it is part of the reason why I still try to understand him, years after he took his last breath, in his bed at home. A home that me and my husband own, but where he resided, where he chose to have his last breath. It took time to shift from pain to trust, from resentment to heartfelt love. The father who died, was not the one I lived with for most of my life. I am grateful for this.

My father was 8 years old and living in Glasgow when WW2 began. Bombings, displacement, death. He built a future of fear and anger, as destruction rained down on him, he internalized this and it scarred everything with a vicious depth and ferocity that left few around him untouched by it.

I didn`t know much of those years until later in his life, until the last years and months of his life. I read about it in journals after he died. I heard him ask for my forgiveness in the last 6 months of his life. I started healing from the what-could-have-been when my children were born, and saw the pure love he showed them. I forgave him years before, when I stood up and refused to take any additional verbal assaults. I don`t know why I was his target. Something in me repulsed him. There were times growing up when he was yelling at me again for the many-dozen-th time that week, seething so much at me I could see the foamy saliva forming on the corners of his mouth. Rabidly angry at me. It took me many years to realize it wasn`t me.

In the sunshine, as sunset beamed what felt a million shades of pink and purple, the sunset of his life too, the last of the days where he was still mobile. He tearfully spoke, in a voice softened by illness, age and understanding. He spoke of his anger, how all consumed he was. How he lived in anger. How I had been the one he had targeted anger. Never a full explanation of why me. He spoke to my strength. He asked me my forgiveness. He regretted not living a life with more love. I felt so much deep, in your core sadness...could it reach any deeper. I explained again, I forgave him a long time ago. I had chosen not to live in anger or shame or resentment. I did not want a half life. I learned and saw what damage could result. I learned, painfully, but learned gratitude and forgiveness are gifts we give ourselves, they liberated me from the pain of not feeling enough, of not understanding how someone could be my parent, but despise me for simply breathing alongside them.

Healing was truly complete when I saw who he could be, when he let love in. My boys had already healed me, the bond I have with them gives me hope and gratitude and more love than I could have ever imagined in life. I saw them heal him with their love words and their hugs and joy. I saw my father through the lens of a grandfather who doted on his grandchildren. It was bittersweet as he could have been that for me, but when I saw the beautiful, perfect love form between them, I felt the sunshine of that love. I carry that with me...the feelings of seeing those moments. When I look back at the traumas of my father`s childhood, and how he passed those to me by his words and actions, I am not haunted by them. I learned what was mine and what wasn`t. I chose love. I chose myself.

I am my father, and so I try to keep learning. Genealogy is so much a part of that and am so grateful for the DNA cousins I have met along the journey. I am more drawn to dedicating time to my paternal side. I wish he could see it, that he could know so much of what I have found. I wish he had shared his stories, that it hadn`t been access to journals after he had died. But I am grateful, that despite all of the complicated, that when I said goodbye to my father, after my youngest had made a series of origami boats and placed them around his head on his pillow, that after his last ever action he had after being in a coma for over a week, was that he suddenly reached out to my children inexplicably (no medical explanation) as he hovered over death, when I said goodbye to him, I was able to fully and honestly say, that I loved him.

Sunday, December 01, 2019

my Flemings



Image result for ballydown"
photo from wiki




DNA
key to my ancestors
link to distant cousins with a shared passion
to know our ancestors
to learn from them
to fulfill their promise
to breathe life into their lost names, etched in stone, fading in old churchyards

My 4th cousin 2x removed gave me a tremendous family gift - PLACE
thanks to his reaching out, I took his names and places and found mine
gratitude washes over me with the faces of my past
County Down, in the area around Ballydown
this cousin was born in the area
he lives in the area
he has stories
his stories are my stories
now I know them
now I record them
now the past has place, which makes the ground of the present feel more solid
and soon I will know the land and walk where my Fleming ancestors did

connections via DNA - my Canadian cousin

I have embraced the magic of DNA matching wholeheartedly. Magic?! Yes, for those of us who are passionate about re-creating our family trees it is.

Last night, I spent the evening with dozens of my coworkers, saying goodbye to one of our own as she accepted a transfer to another city, following her joy.

Last year, randomly searching a last name in my DNA matches, I stumbled upon the name of a retired coworker. The match was small, I starred it and left it there. I had gifted my mother and brother a DNA kit as our expressions of DNA vary among siblings, and having my mother test helps narrow down maternal/paternal matches.  When their results came in, I went back to my starred match, and both my brother and mother did - my mother being a slightly stronger match.

DNA cousins.

She was there last night, she has a face that could easily fit in with my Irish family, but she knows of none. She has Forrest splashed all over her family tree - and so this is the link we will explore.  I hope some day to tell her where our Forrests meet. I suspect she is a 6th cousin to my mother, just out of reach of my current research, it spurs me on.

I have made connections and messaged with several DNA cousins, most with a stronger link by genetics - but I worked with her for years, despite a generational difference, we were friends at work, and last night, we wore cardigan sweaters that were the exact same shade of royal blue - of dozens of coworkers, past and present, we were the only 2 sporting this colour.

I have a Canadian cousin now, and one that I am blessed enough to call friend.

A bit more DNA magic.

Saturday, November 02, 2019

the earliest memories - my grandfather

Reflecting on my grandfather, William O'Donoghue (1907-1976)

I don't remember where I first read about it, but know that memories start making recollective imprints around the age of 5. And this is true for me. From about the age of 5, I have a flood of memories I can tap into, and before that, nearly nothing.

I have 2 memories from my very early childhood. Given that I was so young, I can only assume that they were very impactful points in my young life.

The first was when I had my tonsils removed, just before I turned 3. I remember the colour of the walls - those sea green walls. I remember how I felt...afraid and alone despite the whir of people around me.

The second was when I was 3. I was in Ireland, at my grandparents' home. My grandfather with the big smile and gentle laugh was carrying me, I remember the warmth of his sweater pressing against my face, lifting me up, as I reached for an apple from a tree in his orchard. A chorus of laughter swept over us like a wave of security. That moment is frozen in time, deeply embedded in memory, I feel it within the depths of my heart when I recount it, it stirs up tears when I do. I felt safe, loved, and joy.

Whenever I need to remember my first moments of joy, I return to that memory. There is a photograph in one of my parents' albums of him holding me, both of us beaming happiness. I will add that to this post when I see it again.

He died a year later.

My grandfather, William O'Donoghue was a teacher, and then principal of a National school in Ireland. His wife, my grandmother, Mary O'Connor was also a teacher.

I have several uncles who were teachers.

I am a teacher.

And my grandfather, when I was 3 years old, taught me how to find joy in the most ordinary of moments. And I am so grateful that my mind captured such a beautiful, enduring memory of him.

Saturday, August 31, 2019

David Forrest




I don't think this will be the only post I write about my 2x great grandfather David Forrest.
I am finishing reading a book by one of his grandsons, and he is featured in the early chapters quite prominently.
It gives me a sense of his presence.
And I felt his presence far before reading this book (WORSE COULD HAVE HAPPENED - ANDREW FORREST)

He travelled...he lived in other countries...and as I researched and learned more of him, I found he had been to Canada.
I suppose this was a big deal because before my mum, I didn't know of anyone in my direct line who had been to this country.
He spent some time in the Prairies...I found him in Saskatchewan at one point.

When his travelling days were over, when his 10 years in Australia were brought to an abrupt end (family duties, returning to Ireland as his brother was ill, and David was to manage the family land), I got a sense of who he evolved into.

an activist who worked for farmers rights in establishing the dairy collective
a well-read man who delighted his grandchildren with stories of Egypt and the pharaohs
a man who spent hours sitting out under the trees reading
someone I feel I have met through time and ancestral memory.

Saturday, August 10, 2019

margaret christie mcfarlane stokes

two years ago my father died

and I never felt connected to him

this is partly why I started researching my family tree

to find some connection, for something familiar
through servants and weavers
illicit affairs and suicides

and then - my elusive 3x great grandmother

MARGARET CHRISTIE b 1820, married 1837, d 1889

well, she has been a research challenge

and now I know her, I know what she gave me. She is my first paternal link to health care work, and perhaps I am hers.

her husband committed suicide in 1856, I glean from it that he had possibly been involved in union organizing, and was being banned from other Clydebank factories, and it was publicized enough to find him.

but I have wondered about her - 36 years old in 1856 and 8 children later and a husband who committed a very public suicide in front of his co-workers...well I wasn't sure

I found her..in the 1861 Scotland Census married to a John Stoker (sp Stokes)
The irony is I already have Stokes in my happy Cork family roots

But Margaret - well she must have been so resourceful

she became a MIDWIFE in BELFAST!
I stumbled upon an article in 1869 that mentions her

and she is my first link with my health care career.
so I thank her
and she knows now I carry her with me.
I carry part of her spirit as I also treat others...funny my affinity for treating pregnancy and fertility issues


and now, my 3x greatgrandmother, I can nearly hear you whisper as I work with others.
I trust you are with me.
I carry you
I carry you in every cell


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