Gold Coins

I'm a happy guy; it's been a really good week. Age and experience has made me interested in my ancestors and after searching for family with minimal recent success, this week I rediscovered an Aunt I had not seen in about 17 years.

I'm from the typical American family; we all hung out together when we were young. Time and circumstance, along with necessity and a bit of our own self absorption has allowed us to drift apart. I am the oldest of six kids and rarely if ever get to see any of my siblings face to face. Some of my siblings I have not hugged in more than ten years. If it weren't for the wonder of social networking sites like Facebook, I probably wouldn't know much about the lives of the two sisters I see there.

Why? Why does this happen? Why do we as humans, the social creatures that we are allow this to happen? In a world full of people who seem to be out only for their own good and gain, why do we let life take us away from the people most closely related to us? Brothers and sisters are closer to us than either of our parents, we only share half our DNA with each of them, siblings are higher than that.

This week was good, great, a miracle if you will. I found Aunt Kathy, my fathers' sister, the Aunt I used to go visit for a week or so each summer. It's funny, after my parents divorced my mother moved to a small town North of Los Angeles, Sylmar, so I could grow up near his family. Over the years they left, moved to central California and beyond, only we were left behind.

My Father, I still, after all we've been through, I still want to give him the benefit of the doubt, want to believe it all makes sense from his perspective. He's a man that believes that you take care of #1 first and if anyone and I mean anyone get's in the way of your dreams, you turn your back and walk away. That's what happened with us. I didn't take his advice and he turned his back on us. What else was I supposed to believe, he'd just had me read the book he said he based his life on. It was fresh in my mind when we had that last conversation, my blood ran cold as I had the realization, he was finished with us, slap!

Now after 17 or so years, my Aunt has returned. I once again have a connection to my ancestors. Sadly I learned that in the intervening years my Fathers Mother had passed away. I was sad to get the confirmation that she was indeed gone, it's one thing to imagine the loss, to rationalize that time must have resulted in this or that, but the reality skews your reality for a moment. I was at least glad that it happened in her sleep. That is the way to go, the way I believe we'd all like to leave this world.

Aunt Kathy's back and she lives less than an hour from home, how I wish I were there now because I'd be there listening to her experiences of the last 17 years, her years of volunteering, sacrifice for a cause she believes in.

In a few days I return home from an extended trip, I return in time for Thanksgiving. It was already to be greater than average celebrations as one of my sisters and one of my wives sister's families were joining us. Now there is the real prospect of a long lost Aunt and cousins joining us. I don't think I have ever looked to Thanksgiving so much.

My joy is tempered by the knowledge that my brothers will not be there. One I can't reach, the other is on a relationship that the words bad and abusive do not begin to describe. He isn't allowed to come; he's being punished for marrying her and ruining her life, a topic for another story.

Another sister has a husband that recently lost his grandmother; his father needs the moral support. Selfishly speaking, an inconvenient time, but I understand. The last sister, I can't begin to form the words to describe how I feel. Is it pride, embarrassment, what keeps her from walking away from a misunderstanding and reaching out to her family? Money should never come between families, we're supposed to let the silly things go and support each other.

I don't think I realized, I don't think it ever even occurred to me until now what I was missing not having Aunts or Uncles around as I grew into adulthood, nobody there to talk to. I know none of my mother's relatives, not really. My father was all but estranged from his family so I lost track of them years ago. It shouldn't take 5 years to find out your grandmother has passed away and then only because you got lucky one evening on Google.

Maybe this is why my wife and I have worked so hard to be close to our children. Maybe we live in secret fear that they, like their ancestors, will one day walk away never to be seen or heard from again. Call it ancesteral/decendent amputation if you will. Like a lost limb we still have phantom itches from the missing member. Wasn't it the disintegration of the family that caused the fall of the Roman Empire?

My faith teaches me that family comes before all, even religion. It teaches me that to be a success at my religion, I must first and foremost build, protect and preserve my family. What do you do when they don't want to cooperate though?

You take what you have, you hold it up to the light, you place it on a pedestal and treat it as the precious thing it is. A man with a single gold coin reaches into his pocket and checks on the coin constantly, he rolls it in his fingers feeling the texture of the face and edges until he knows the coin. He feels the weight even as he walks through life, the gentle tap, tap, tap against his leg. He is aware of its ever presence. It is never far from his mind as he goes about life.

This week I'll pick up my small pile of coins, I'll hold them to the light, examine their faces, feel their edges, and measure their weight. I'll work a little harder to feel them as I carry them through my life. I'll be acutely aware if that weight changes and go in search of each precious lost coin. This year I am blessed to have new coins in my small collection, coins I thought I'd lost forever, coins I'd forgotten along the way. I also lose a coin if only temporarily as my oldest son leaves for two years in Florida. This is a coin I need to pay special attention to as I return home.

As the holidays approach I urge you to do the same. Check your pockets; repair the holes that have allowed your coins to fall along the path of life. Take time to go back, search for them, and bring them home. Feel the faces; memorize the edges because some coins, like a lost loved one can never be found again on the road of life. At least not on this lifetime.