Where Do You Come From

One day last week my mom's cousin found me on facebook wanting to know if I was the Katie related to my mom.  To turn a long story short, she's been working on the family's genealogy and had some questions for my mom about a few things.  Well, this peaked my curiosity and I had to know what she'd found already.  So I signed up for ancestry's free two week membership (which I have to cancel in the next 7 days or I get charged a boatload of money) and started looking around.

It was actually really easy- you start a family tree by entering what you know and then they send you hints about who might be related to the people you entered.  I already had a fair amount of information due to a family tree I'd done in the 4th grade and for most my of family I knew all of the Greats and some of the Great-Greats. The cousin who contacted my mom is from my Mema's side of the family and she had traced things back to the early 1800's.  I thought that was pretty impressive. But as it would turn out, many people had already done the entire genealogy of my name sake Great-Grandmother- Katie, which was my Papa's mother. The majority of the family on his could be traced back to the 1700's, but the line through Katie's family was a completely different story- it goes back to the 1200's in England!

And it's not just any old line- it's a fairly aristocratic one.  Katie's 5th great-grandfather was also Martha Washington's father.  Her 6th Great-Grandmother was the daughter of Virginia's Governor Spotswood. They were all important members of the Williamsburg elite back in the Revolutionary and Pre-Revolutionary days.  Before those days, her family in England were all lords and ladies.  So, how then did my Great-Grandmother Katie end up a poor farmer's wife in the mountains of Southwest Virginia with 11 kids?

I have all these names and no stories and I want to know how it all happened.  Her family from 100 years before were all educated, landed, upper class members of society with money.  What transpired in those later years that altered everything?  I'm glad that everything worked the way it did, or else I wouldn't be here, but it still makes me sad for the original Katie.  She had a hard life- giving birth to my Papa at the age of 42, the baby of her 11 children, in a one bedroom house. 

It's weird to see this extremely long line of people that are the reason I am who I am and know nothing about them.  I need more details, more stories, more information, more everything.  It's not enough for me to know where I come from- I also need to know the why.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, an Ideal Legacy

At the end of my Junior year at W&M I was a complete emotional wreck- I was a hot mess, to be sure. On April 22 my whole world turned upside down and that afternoon is, unfortunately, a day I can never forget. My boyfriend since the 7th grade said to me "I want a girlfriend and in case you can't tell, it's not you." I hung up a sobbing mess only to see two of my friends burst through my door crying. They assumed I was crying for the same reason, saying they just couldn't believe he might be gone. Well I knew they couldn't have been talking about my ex because a) they hated him and b) we had just broken up 2 seconds before.

That's when they told me our friend was en route to the hospital, unconscious and unresponsive. He was a senior and had been the Orientation Adviser to our freshman hall. After that first week was over he stuck around and quickly became our friend. It was less than a month before he would've graduated and he was giving his last W&M tour for potential new students and their families. In the middle of campus there's the Crim Dell, which is a pond that has a famous bridge over it. One of things you're supposed to do before you graduate is jump in it, a rite of passage if you will.

At the conclusion of the tour he jumped in. Only he didn't jump, he did a back flip in and hit his head on a submerged piece of debris; his spinal cord was severed and by the time the students who jumped in found him, he couldn't be resuscitated. We didn't have all that information at the time, so we all piled into my car and headed to the hospital. It's a moment I'll never forget; we were walking from the parking lot just as another friend was coming out of the ER door. She saw us and shook her head, tears streaming down her face. We all stood there looking at each other for what seemed like an eternity.

The rest of the day I only remember in hazy snippets and when I think about that time, it's like an elephant is standing on my chest and I can't breathe. I've never been very good at dealing with things when they happen, I'm more of the suppress-it-until-you-can-cope type. I had an interview two days later for a summer job and I sunk myself into preparing for it. When I got the job it seemed like a life saver to me, something I could fully immerse myself in that would allow me to forget about my broken spirit.

I worked as a legal intern for the Virginia Department of Education, specifically in the special ed. division. It was heaven and hell all rolled into a ball. On the one hand, it gave me a purpose when I really needed one, but it also left me profoundly depressed every day when I left. The kids and their stories all clung to me and I couldn't get enough professional distance from them. Every child broke my heart and I was disgusted to realize how many political games were played in special ed. 

Some parents fought tooth and nail for their children while others just shipped them off to the "best" facilities they could afford. School boards were vicious in trying to protect themselves, both fiscally and legally. It was a game played out by lawyers and school boards, and the loser was almost always the child. While I was there I wrote a help manual for parents, a guide to show them the ins and outs of special ed. law and policy, because so many times they were just legally out-maneuvered when they actually had a legitimate complaint/dispute.

There were so many gray areas though, sometimes parents did try and take advantage of the system and sometimes school boards/special ed. directors were looking out for the child's best interest when their parent wasn't. The real heroes are the people who dedicate their lives to helping these children with special needs. It's a thankless, underfunded job that will break your heart over and over again.
Because I was so emotionally raw at the time, everything and everyone became personal. Most people who work in special ed. become jaded over time because they have to, it's a matter of emotional and psychological preservation. When I went back to school at the end of the summer I was a different person. I'd seen the damage of jaded and I became an idealist. Never before had I felt so out of control of my life as did during those months and I hated it. HATED IT.

Generally, when someone feels out of control in their life, they either try to frantically reclaim it or surrender and give up. Very few people are able to rise above and create something positive from it. The Special Olympics is an example of something amazing born from the loss of such control. Eunice Kennnedy Shriver created the SO after her sister, Rosemary Kennedy, was rendered mentally incapacitated after a botched lobotomy. After witnessing the horrors of what happened to her sister, she dedicated herself to becoming a champion for those with special needs. There was no longer anything she could do to for her sister but there were millions of others that she could help; and she did.

I'm always amazed at people who display such inner strength and fortitude. Working in special ed. opened my eyes to the harsh realities of the real world. My problems no longer seemed as earth shattering and I realized that becoming jaded is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. It dulls your passion and then makes you complacent- tricking yourself into believing that you're satisfied with the status quo because you believe there's nothing you can do to change it.

During one of the lowest times of my life (but not the lowest) when my defenses were down, I let hundreds of kids into my heart. And it hurt, it does even now. But it made me realize that idealism isn't naive, it's hope- the hope for something better. When I read that Eunice Kennedy Shriver died this morning, it brought back all of my memories from those days. And while death is always sad, she leaves behind a beautiful legacy. From her sister's tragedy she created something enduring and positive in her memory. She was the kind of person you want your kids to say to you "I want to be like Eunice Kennedy Shriver when I grow up." Sometimes her story gets lost in the Kennedy family saga, and that's such a shame, because she certainly was one of the heroes.

Forget Me Not

The Forget Me Not Flower

I have an excellent memory. Not photographic, but I did memorize the entire Gettysburg Address in the 5th grade (I still know it), I could tell you what you wore on any given day, and can playback entire conversations from as long ago as nursery school. I just remember things, which can sometimes be good or bad.

Most of these things are facts or feelings, I often can't remember where I hid my keys from Spencer. But recently I've noticed a startling a trend- I've forgotten, or blocked out, large parts of who I used to be. Before Spencer (BS), I was the ultimate hopeless romantic, the girl who believed love conquered all, and there was no romantic comedy that I didn't like. During my freshman year of college, our hall ordered t-shirts that had our names and a quote about us on it- mine was "Katie 'I love love." I had a kissing wall, every year, in all of my dorm rooms- photos and magazine cut outs of various kisses. I unconditionally gave my whole heart to the love of my life.

Then one day I had a baby and all my love went to her. It no longer seemed appropriate to be that girl anymore, after all, it was my amorous ways that got me here. Deep down though, I'm still that same hopeless romantic who believes in soul mates and true love. But, it makes me sad to remember that Katie (uh oh, I'm talking in the 3rd person) and how I thought I was going to grow up, become a pro bono lawyer, get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. That's still no excuse for completely excising that part of myself just because it makes me wistful.

Yesterday, I realized that it wasn't just the "I love love" me that I put on the back burner, I also did it with, to a lesser extent, the government loving patriotic me. I still talk about politics, but if you knew me BS you'd know that it was one of my favorite topics to discuss- I don't think a day went by when I didn't talk about it in some way or another. But then I had a baby and continuing law school was no longer an option- talking about politics, governments and laws only reminded me that I wasn't going to have the life I'd spent years preparing for.

I was listening to NPR on the way home from celebrating the 4th with the PGP's and they did a segment on the WASPs, no not White Anglo Saxon Protestants. The WASPS, Women Airforce Service Pilots, were female pilots during WWII who flew military aircraft for the United States Army Airforce. They were flight instructors, test flew sick planes to make sure they were suitable for flying before the men flew them, and were often used to pilot planes that were being used as target practice for the men learning how to shoot while flying. Thirty-Eight of them died and not one was allowed to have a military burial or a Gold Star- the US didn't even pay to have their bodies shipped back to their families. After the War, Congress defeated a proposed bill that would have given these women the military benefits they deserved and went so far as to seal the records of the WASPs, their contribution hidden from the world. On July 1, 2009, 65 years after their records were sealed, President Obama awarded these courageous women with the Congressional Gold Medal.

When I heard this, I burst into tears- which surprised me. But I thought about why it had elicited such an emotional response and the answer came to me- these ladies were heroes who were unjustly forgotten. They dedicated a part of their life, some gave their lives, to a cause and were then forced to ignore it, to pretend like it never happened.


And here I am, shutting out, ignoring huge parts of myself just because it makes me sad?! So what if I don't have the life I imagined? It may be different, but I LOVE it. All I've really wanted, my whole life, is to be remembered, have a legacy- change the world for the better in some small way. I still plan on achieving that goal, I'm not sure how, but I still see endless opportunities in my future. I'm not sure why I've going about these past two years as if the old me no longer exists, or isn't really relevant to the current or future me.
My baby turns two on Friday. Two. She's a little girl now and I'm having some trouble accepting that. I keep thinking about our life together and how I wouldn't trade it for anything in this world. I'm happy- there's no longer a reason for me to forget who I was. Spencer is almost at the age where she's going to remember her life- our life- and I want to be all of me for her, not just the parts I've carved out. After all, if I hadn't been me I wouldn't have had her, and that's not something I ever want to forget.