Shhh......Don't Tell

"The autobiographies of parents and grandparents can be valuable 

in providing information to the family's children for any number of reasons

---from merely the delight of a hobby to a medical treatment. ..."

"Individual autobiographies provide insights that contribute 

to the family both now and as they are passed along to following 

generations. An autobiography provides a unique outlook that 

helps to establish a family identity, a foundation that can influence 

the members of that family for ages to come."

To look at my extended family you would never know that we are a family built upon secrets. Secrets that have been and will probably be taken to the grave. There is much weird and quirky stuff that is not a secret. My great grandfather and his brother married sisters and lived in the same home together. Whoever was currently pregnant got the privilege of living downstairs while the other couple lived upstairs. My mother's first cousin married her husband's sister. I have a first cousin who married my second cousin and had 5 children together. And none of this is secret. My mother's step-sister ran away from home in her teens and nobody knows where she is, however months after she left her purse was dropped by at my grandmother's home with a note saying that "Lynette won't need this where she is"

However my mother still seeks for information about her biological father. All she knows is a name from her birth certificate, and whispered unconfirmed rumors. Maybe he was a polygamist, maybe he was a pharmacist, maybe he used to work in Spanish Fork. My grandmother is alive and well and this is something she is unwilling to talk about. I know that this bothers my mother as we've talked about it and she has spent considerable time trying to locate him or find out any information that she can about him.

My mother's older brother doesn't even have a name on a birth certificate. He was mostly raised by my great grand parents. He's dead now and I wonder if his children wonder about his ancestry as much as I do.

I was born when my mother was still in High School. I know this mostly because there is a picture of her holding me in her graduation gown. I don't know who my biological father is. There are rumors that I've heard all my life. Maybe he died in a car crash, maybe he died in Vietnam, he was a cousin of my grandmother's next door neighbors who I grew up playing with. I don't even have a name on a birth certificate to go on. I was legally adopted by my step-father when I was quite young and a new birth certificate was issued.

There is a family rumor that my great-grandfather caused my mother and step-father to get married at "gunpoint" when she became pregnant with my younger brother.  I know they were married at Niagara Falls or something like that because a picture exists of my mother in her hot-pink mini- skirt that she wore for her wedding dress.

One of the reasons I want to keep this record of our family is I want my boys to have something that they can look back on and remember what our life was like when they were 2 or 5 or 8, etc.  I don't want them to be constantly floundering to find their identity wondering what if.  I want them to know and remember both the good times and the hard times.

This last year has been full of hard times.  The details don't need to be included here, although I may add them in when I print this into a book for our family records.  What does need to be remembered is that through the hard times we had each other.  Their father and I moved heaven and earth to keep them safe and to help them heal and move through the hard times.  Our Savior was there each and every moment and heard our prayers and comforted  and healed our hearts, minds, bodies and spirits.  We are beloved children of a wise and loving Father who lives in heaven and He will see us through all the experiences we have during our lives here on earth.