Family History:

When turning a landmark age, we ask ourselves what we'll be remembered for. I hope I am remembered kindly... of course, by that time, it may be with breath of relief by the time I shrug these mortal coils.

So, this year (meaning my 70th) among other things, I decided to condense the family albums. What a job that is. Not so much from deciding whether to keep the pictures of the dandelions and violets, but condensing events to fit a page or two.

I had started putting the albums into matching sizes, all the scrap-booking type with the white oversize pages that just fit so many photos snugly and sometimes with the help of a trim here and there. This project started years ago... with, at least, the purchase of about 5 albums/scrapbooks from AC Moore. I got my Aunt Daw's life down pat with some of the scrapbooking skills of including her Navy and WACS photos and stripes, as well as my childhood with the help of her pictures, as almost exclusively taken by her, being the only avid photographer in the family. Then I put the project aside... Two years later, here I am trying to catch up to the present, and I'm only to 1993.

Anyhow, I became more ambitious this year, and recapturing the events photographed through the year where I married Tom; and the year Jo married Russ; and my first two grandchildren were born. Who knew how many memories both wonderful and emotionally draining would come up. As I'm doing all this, I'm watching the drivel that passes for evening's prime time viewing. That part helps, believe it or not, as it keeps me from getting too emotionally involved with the things that happened at certain times through the course of My And OUR family's lives. It forces me to focus rationally, as emotions can't multi-task, though there were some pages that wrenched my heart so, that the relief of watching TV, whether a morbid drama or a comedy, helped my get through those paralyzing pages which would take me hours to finish, as if the scenario weighted me down so emotionally.

So, "Why are you telling us this?" you may ask. I guess because I wanted you to all know how important our family has been in our integrated lives, our children growing into adults, marrying, and those in-laws becoming part of our families pictures, not only their spouses, but all the extended family. We are all emotionally connected whether it be by blood, or adoption, or marriage, and sometimes unofficial adoption of close friends of the family or children's families. So, when there is a loss, we all share it equally, though felt emotionally more or less to how close that person is, but it's like we are all in the same boat, so that when things switch positions we all feel the movement emotionally just as much as one feels that need to re-shift our weight to keep the balance.

I just wanted to write this to let you know that what you do affects the rest of your family, whether you want it to or not. In redoing the album I realized how my divorce of my first husband must have affected my children. How my marrying Tom affected his and my children, both immediately and how it played throughout the years as we grew closer. I found out how much guilt I have retained and stashed into my gut to bring up for review every so often, and really aired it out in this process of redoing the albums, especially as I have journals which help point out the exact date things happened... but I also can feel the emotions all over again when reading about how I felt at that time.

When it comes to guilt, I conclude that guilt is selfish. It's like that saying "It's all about ME, isn't it?" when I let the family dynamics of loss get me down when I'm not directly involved. After all, it is other than myself that things are happening to, like an adult child separating or getting a divorce, or how it affects another family member when they are having a personal loss. It is always okay to feel the thrill of a newborn; the happiness of a marriage ceremony; the congratulatory feelings of the other's accomplishment, but it is also okay to grieve the losses as well ...those decisions we feel affect us in a negative way. But we can't make judgments for another. They must do this for themselves or be enslaved by the opinions of others.

But there are times when we feel and still feel that our guilt has been merited. I was wrong one time about not being there for a family member who was having dire problems. And wouldn't it be nice if I could have a redo and do things differently. But at those times, thank goodness I felt a guiding Spirit with whom I could pour out my heart and look for some guidance, and confess to the person I wronged to how I should have reacted or shown more understanding, hoping for his forgiveness.

In other words, I've been going through all the feelings over the years when there is a birth, a marriage, a divorce, a death. But, wow, it's life. It's how it all plays out. Each of us has to make choices that at times seem wrong to the others who have to shift around in that family boat to achieve a better balance again. When one objects of the decision another has made, there is no way they can stand in the shoes of that member of the family who is living the decision.

A family member's feeling of guilt is the knowledge of making waves and changing the status quo. That guilt does no good. Guilt only makes the inevitable a more rocky road in which to endure. One must realize in life that "this is the only life I've got, and I've got to decide for myself or I'll forever resent those who coerce me to do what in their minds is right." We can talk with each other, express our feelings to each other, but in the long run, we have to be masters of our own souls or we aren't really living at all. When we feel we've hurt someone... then we need to apologize, and ask for forgiveness. When someone has hurt us, tell them, and ask them for an apology and then give them forgiveness. It's one of the most valuable gifts we can give one another... forgiveness.

For example, when I married Al Zumbuhl, Sr., I married for life. I had all intentions to fulfill the "...to death do us part." But, as I approached 40 years of age, I began to see my life as if it were already over and would have to be an uphill road from there on... it would not have been a life at all. The ironic thing is, before I made the decision to separate with the intent of getting a divorce, had I still been an agnostic... and I couldn't have done it without feeling that a greater Power would stand by me even if I made the decision to go seek something more for this life. It was like my faith made me strong enough to give me the grit to do something about ...not just my, but our impossible situation, as my first husband was not happy either. No one was happy for awhile. But, in not having divorced Al, I could have lived without guilt. But what I would probably have lived with would be resentment... "I did this (staying married) for YOU" [...Whether the "You" was God, the marital Promise, or my Children], the resentment would be the implication of my whole gist of life. And maybe that is wrong, but when faced with the gut-revelation at around 40 years of age, that one's life is already perhaps half over, one thinks, "Is that all there is to the rest of my life... more of this?" Life is not just a practice game. We get no second chances to relive our lives in a different scenario. We must push on and use our God given free will to do what we feel we have to do to live a life and be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, "I did my best, and tried to be all I could be. If that isn't enough, then what is?"

More and more I'm thinking that no matter how hard we try to make this life as perfect as a heaven on earth, we find that this lifetime seems to be more a test... a practice ground for something More. I used to be more sure what it was all about when I first felt the touch of God, but that was the honeymoon stage of any belief system in which we find guidance. Guidance can lead us only so far. We've been given our free will, and with that comes our humanity, and with that comes the history of civilization. We are not angels. We are not perfect. This life is difficult. Probably as difficult as a good story well told. "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily; Life is just a dream" doesn't make for a page turner.

People are mainly survivors, and as I redo these albums, I put in the engagement pictures, the marriages, the picnics and festivals, the family gatherings thus far (up to 1993), knowing who is and who isn't going to be in them in the album a few years later. It's sad, and I relive it. Would I change it if it was a magic album and could have re-dos like there was some parallel universe? ...Like I could back up, turn around and take a different road, paddle a different river, do something about the obstacles to make them passable? I thought about that. I mean, why leave things in the album that are no longer relevant... a marriage ceremony that has long since broken up; a grandchild living elsewhere with adoptive parents. But, that is not only a lie, it's impossible to do, and it's an important part of the story.

Our lives together as well as apart are what it's all about. Our history is not in the remaking, but in the capturing the story as it's played out, and stored on the bottom shelf of the bookcase on the right of the TV, under Tom's trophy Moosehead that seems to be nodding in approval of how it's all played out.

Like a good novel, it makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it elates and depresses... it's how we grow. It's our own family history. You have to do what you have to do. And I stick in the pictures as it plays out, and we can only look back and wish we had done things better, but it is photographed and witnessed... it cannot be changed. We do our best, and then get on with it. So be it!