Mutual Saves

Has anyone ever rescued you, figuratively or literally?

So far, in my life, I haven’t been pulled from a burning car, talked down from a literal ledge, or required CPR. I have been blessed to not require having had my actual life saved in such a dramatic fashion.

That being said, I realize that Jonas Salk and any of the other medical researchers who have contributed to developing vaccines may have very well saved my literal life and I have been blissfully unaware. Nowadays, the researchers who have developed the Covid vaccine may be added to that list. With over half of a million people having died from Covid, the countless others who still suffer from long-term problems, and the numbers increasing daily, this vaccine is one that I can presently appreciate and look forward to receiving. I believe that it may very well save countless lives, perhaps mine included.

Of course, my parents and all of the adults in my life who have taught me to not cross the street without looking, to not leave open flames unattended, to not eat poke berries… have all also probably contributed to rescuing my life in some literal way. The folks who have designed our modern safety features very well may have saved my butt without me even recognizing it also.

While many folks may have contributed to saving my literal life in some way, I want to write about someone else, or, more accurately, a group of someones who has rescued me in a more figurative manner.

Back in 2009, a tornado came close to destroying the home of my parents. Thankfully, my parents and my niece were unscathed and, for the most part, their actual home was spared. However, I noted how close we came to losing all of the family photos that we had collected over the years.

Some photos were old family photos and had been passed down from other family members. Some were school photos or snapshots that had been tucked inside Christmas cards before being put in the mail. Others had been taken by my parents and other family members. Moments in time were captured on film; pictures of my brother and I as children, my grandparents when they were alive, the smile of my sweet great-grandmother Granny. I thought about how close we had come to losing these treasures and I was determined to make sure that that never happened.

I knew that there was a way to scan photos onto a computer so that even if an original photo was lost, the image could be saved. I was determined to learn how to do this. I got a laptop and a scanner and with much help from family, this severely tech-challenged lady learned how to save our family photos.

Scanning all of these photos made me wonder about the folks that were pictured. Several of those folks were people that I had never met. They had passed away before I was even born. I began to wonder about who they were, how they were related to me, what their lives had been like. Some of the pictures were of folks no one remembered. No one could say who they were and this saddened me. Mom would tell me that a certain picture was of Uncle John and it wasn’t the Uncle John or the Uncle Johnnie that I was familiar with. This made me curious about who this Uncle John was.

                                                                      Mom's Family

So all of this curiosity led me to get a subscription to Ancestry and getting a subscription to Ancestry has only served to provide more family members for me to be curious about. It has started a vicious cycle.

As I have learned about my family, I have seen what amazing people I come from. For the most part; they had no claim to fame, they possessed no great wealth, they weren’t drop-dead gorgeous. They were ordinary hard-working, tenacious, ingenious, loving people who deserve to be remembered.

Some folks are “called” to preach, to teach, to enter a convent… I began to feel a calling to find out as much about my family history as possible and to share and preserve that history.

I researched on Ancestry. I talked to family members, trying to get them to share their memories and stories with me. I have pestered my parents for information on how they did things back in the day. I have visited family with my laptop and scanner so that I could save their family photos too. I began a family Facebook group so that I could share it all with family and hoped that family would share their stories and photos also.

                                                                           Dad's Family

So for nearly a dozen years, I have been researching, writing stories, preserving and sharing family history. Ironically, as I have been trying to rescue my family’s history, my family’s history has been rescuing me. It has rescued me from boredom and more importantly, it has given me a sense of purpose. My three children have all grown up into fine young adults and don’t need me anymore. Trying to save my family’s history has given me a new purpose in life. Not only am I trying to honor past family members by recognizing their history, but I am hopefully giving a gift to my children, my granddaughter, and future generations. They are little knuckleheads now and aren’t interested in family history but I used to be a little knucklehead too. I hope that one day they will grow out of their knucklehead phase just like I did. When they do, they can read the stories and memories that have been shared with me and by me. Perhaps, then, they will appreciate the family history that I have tried to preserve.

So, my ancestors and I are having a symbiotic relationship. While I am trying to save them, they are in turn saving me!