So I’ve been thinking this weekend a lot about generational wisdom.
I never knew my grandparents, except for one of them—my mother’s father. And then, I only ever really met him a couple of times that I remember. He died when I was in third grade. The other three died before I was born. My father was 55 when I was born, which meant that by the time I was ten he was 65, and by the time I was twenty he was 75. He began slipping into Alzheimer’s right around then, and about 10 years after that he died at 82.
A lot of people that I know, either still have living grandparents, or had their grandparents around when they were younger. They get all this extra love and wisdom from them. They also get to re-contextualize their parents’ habits and choices through the eyes of their parents’ parents.
But I never got that chance. I never got the grandmotherly love, the grandfatherly wisdom. I felt so alone as a child and I never knew why. I was the last of three boys of older parents; my grandparents were gone; my aunts and uncles and cousins were all a continent away in England.
When other kids would talk about how their grandparents sent them care packages, I silently wondered what that was like. I watched films and tv shows about grandparents caring for and defending their grandchildren, and it felt like, well, that’s something that maybe I’ll experience after having kids one day, but that I never felt myself. And certainly I never received any sage advice from mine. The only thing that came close was a little New Testament, Psalms and Proverbs that he gave me when I was only three months old with an inscription that read, “God is Love; and he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God dwells in him.” (1 John 4:16). Given the lack of other grandparent wisdom, I’ve taken that to heart.
Honoring my ancestors was a practice I had to come to gradually. Whenever Buddhist ceremonies would mention that, I would think of my parents; anyone before them always felt like a distant dream. Like, there was no difference between my grandparents and 10 generations back.
I give my mother a lot of grief; today of course is Mother’s Day in the U.S., so I was on my best behavior. She’s all I have left of my ancestors. Nevertheless, I myself have a lot of another kind of grief to take care of, and I can’t expect her to be able to deal with it. I don’t think she ever really was able to support me in my grief in the way that I needed. Because it’s not just the grief of my father dying; it’s the grief of never having a larger family community to call upon. My father didn’t have brothers or sisters and most of his other relatives he didn’t like, so that part of the family was never there (with one exception in Colorado… but she’s a recent discovery).
I guess there’s not really a point to this entry, except to remark how sad I feel because I have a lifelong unmet need for family connection. I will forget for a time, and then remember when someone tells me a story about how their grandparents fed them, or gave them love, or took care of them in some way. I’m fortunate in many ways, but I’ve never had that privilege.
May I nevertheless be my ancestors’ wildest dreams.