Ancestry

My granddaughter is doing a school paper on her family tree and called for a bit of info. Set me to thinking. Obama is a self-described "mutt", and I'd guess I'm similar - but different, as are all mutts. We don't have those long, serious pedigrees or numbers after our names. No two of us are ever the same. I like that.

Given that my biological father was killed in an accident a few months before I was born, I have very, very little info about that side of my family. Thanks to my older brother I was able to give the granddaughter the names of his parents (funny, I don't think grandparents), but it ended there. That group of people, while related by blood, was never my family. And, the man I've always called my Dad, and will always feel that way about, was never a blood relative. So he doesn't fit into a family tree. Doesn't quite feel right.

Makes me think of gardening. I go to the nursery in the spring and buy a six pack or flat of little plants. I don't know who started them, put that seed into soil, but without that no flowers or veggies would follow. Equally important though is the gardener, or in Dad's case farmer, who tends and fertilizes and trims when needed. Without that, what would we have? Weeds perhaps or maybe overgrown plants that flower but fail to fruit.

And me? Well, if I was a plant it would be one of those that comes with a warning - maybe "can be invasive" or "difficult to establish" certainly not one of those labeled "easy to grow." So that Dad who doesn't fit on the family tree had all the hard work. I think at least there should be a side branch labeled perhaps "Family of Choice" or some other title that would convey that without this individual the sprouts might never have reached maturity or might have yielded only cracked or bitter fruit. (Yes, I know some would say "cracked" is still appropriate.)

So, though he's long gone from this world, thanks to DAD, the only one I ever knew. I know I didn't make it easy. I think it was Erma Bombeck who wrote a column about step-parents that ended with a wonderful statement something like I have a step parent; I've just forgotten which one.