February 6, 2024
“Life is a River …. Only in the most literal sense are we born on the day we leave our mother’s womb. In the larger, truer sense, we are born of the past – connected to its fluidity, both genetically and experientially.” Wally Lamb – I Know This Much Is True
We understand we are connected to our past, but how much does that past influence our everyday experiences? I read the above quote on the same day that I found a list of my great-grandmother’s relatives on the FamilySearch website. Why I was searching that day, I am not really sure except I was feeling curious about her history. In our family legends, my mother’s grandmother Symphorose Cote was a force to be reckoned with. She died before I got to know her, but her stories live on about how she helped raise my mom. So, when I think of strong women in my family history, she always comes to mind. She was born in 1881 in Fall River, Massachusetts and married my great-grandfather Joseph Beauchesne at age nineteen. They went on to have fifteen children. So many of those children went on to work in the many factories along the Quequechan River. My grandfather Albert was the second born child, and so begins the family history that I am most familiar with.
When we speak of family heritage, most of us think of our grandparents and great-grandparents, but what about the scores of generations that came before them? What hidden secrets and private turmoil lies buried beneath the layers of dust left by man? What marvelous energy and creativity also lies buried deep within the cells of our bones? Is our psyche something we can tap into like the oil that has been dormant for so many eons beneath our earth? When we dig into our consciousness for insight, which voice from the past will answer? When we pray for guidance, which distant relative will beseech on our behalf?
I wish I had a magic lens to peer back into my past to the wilds of Canada or the Coast of France, to the isle of Ireland and so much beyond. From what distant lands did those ancestors travel from in order to settle in those places? Were they city dwellers or villagers? What did they look like? Would I recognize myself in their eyes or in the lines of their faces? So much of this, I will never know. Much of it has been lost forever to the ravages of time. And as we know, time waits for no one. It marches on and leaves us all behind to gather the bits of the past as best we can. We learn from stories told and paper remnants and yes, from the internet too. The only thing I am sure of is that we will all one day become our future’s past. What will we leave behind for those intrepid searchers of a history? Will it be the jobs we worked at and the money we made or will it be something more? It is never too late to start working on that legacy.
