What the heck is this about anyways?

So last week I had two interviews. One with my grandmother and one with my mom. Both of them very enlightening about family and situation. I still have a lot of other family members to interview, if they will allow me too anyways. Personalities were explained through story telling and that was wonderful. So far the interviews have not led me to anything new in the genealogy department, but I do have two books that I have not finished reading that will give me some more information on how to go about my search.

These interviews did lead me to some other answers that I have been seeking. Why? Everyone wants to know why? Why do they have green eyes? Why do they have red hair? Why does Aunt Ethel always drink the cooking sherry? We all want to know why our family's are, the way they are, where does it all come from?

I have received some of the very basic answers. I realize, I am my mother, my mother is her mother, and my grandmother is her mother. I think each and every generation is a little better equipped than the one before it. Each generation doing a little bit better than the one before that. But the women of this family have not completely abolished a nasty little problem that we have had, as far as I know, going back 4 generations.

Realizing this was a little sad, I see that every woman in my family, this is my direct line I am talking about, has learned a lesson including me. I have also realized that those lessons have been learned fairly late in life. My mother didn't learn my grandmothers lesson in time to save herself completely. I did not learn my mothers lesson in time to save myself completely. The saddest realization to come out of all this is that I did not learn my lesson on time for my girls.
I am happy to say that I did learn the lesson. I am thrilled to say that life is beautiful and I am so happy. From one of my favorite songs I could say, "They will see us waving from such great heights." but I stop in my revelry and hang my head with despair. I did learn my lesson, but once again, my children are all here, they have learned my old lessons, not my new ones. I don't know where it will stop, I don't know where the cut off age is for my girls, I taught them the wrong lesson. I remember saying this to one of my children when I went through a dramatic life change. "I have made a mistake." I said, "I have taught you the wrong way to live!"

I now wonder, in sadness, will they take their own road and make their own decisions or is a life I taught them so deeply ingrained that they follow the hardest, bumpiest, longest most painful road to happiness.
I have to trust that it will work out, my girls will all be women, a few already are. I am ok, my mother is ok, and her mother is ok. All of us carry our own problems. Sometimes we let them go and sometimes we try to lay them at someone else's feet or we may even want to hide them.

Something else I learned though, is that the generations before me have passed on some traditions and lifestyles that are not so bad. One of them that I want to focus on is the Faith, our religion, I remember my Grandmother loving her faith, and my mother feeling the same, it was lovely to hear both of them talk about it, and it was lovely to feel very much a part of a line of women who did love their faith. I will take that and remember that it is one thing and as I dig there will be others.
Other fabulous wonderful things that belong to my family.

I had a nice discussion last night, Pancake, Fat or Shrove Tuesday which ever you would like to call it. We talked about it and I explained to the kids what it was all about, also explaining Mardi Gras to them and what this all meant in our religion. Tuesday nights are our family lesson night. Two of the girls take piano lessons and one of our girls takes horse riding lessons, the little guy goes to scouts. So pancakes for dinner goes over really well in my books on such a busy night. It touched something deeper though and made me do a little more research into my faith, which is one of the things on my procrastination list of things to tackle. I can say I know a little more and feel a little richer today.