The pandemic has created hardship, suffering and desperation among many. The extent of the world wide devastation is incomprehensible. I think of the people affected the most: families with children, workers who have lost their jobs, businesses that may never reopen, those living in cramped housing conditions and many others.
We are now just hearing that this may never go away, even after a vaccine is discovered.
Recently I said to a friend, we were fortunate to live when we did. I'm retired, my husband can work remotely. Our Florida community is sparsely populated and pleasant. The dog and I walk to the pond, watch the ducks, and contemplate the beauty around us. I talk to friends on the phone. The dog just sits, pants and is annoyed that we are not going further.
I try not to think of our old life, of what we lost but rather think about what we still have and what we can do to make life manageable, even interesting. We are fortunate.
If this virus is never completely going away, the world is changed forever and we must adapt: individually and as a world community.
Our niece is an environmental engineer, working from the apartment she shares with her boyfriend.
She has started a genealogy project, using 23 and me and Ancestry.com. What she has uncovered is amazing, especially linking up her findings on Ancestry. com and then finding distant relatives with interesting tales to tell about common ancestors. I can see how this would be an all-encompassing project. A project that may have never been started if ordinary work and regular routines were not disrupted.
Years ago, I went on 23 and me when it first started. Some guy in England, an amateur genealogist, discovered we were 6th cousins. We emailed a bit. He was British and I was mainly of Irish heritage. He couldn't understand how we were related since the mutual greatgreat etc grandparents would have lived some time in the 1700's. He wanted me to go back further that the 1820's when my ancestors arrived in America. He acted shocked that I didn't know, couldn't know. How would he, poor fellow, ever figure out how we were related? He though he was pure British. I said, use your imagination. I'm sure the Church of England didn't sanction the coupling that led to our existence 2 centuries later. He was horrified at my offhandedness.
Then there were appeals from people who were adopted and looking for birth parents. I think I know who in my small family might have had an unplanned pregnancy and given up a child. But what is the point, really? Some of the people looking for birth parents were anguished. They were looking for the fantasy real mother and father to replace the adoptive parents who raised them,
I signed my husband up also. He never had any interest. I'd look on line at posts from people to him with the same requests. One had a suspiciously familiar name (we used initials for our profiles). She was my husband's late uncle's daughter. I introduced myself, we chatted on line a bit and she told me a story: her father in law apparently had a child by another woman. This adult child found them: he refused to acknowledge his paternity (she was an adult so no money would have been involved) and it was a sad story because of the confusion it caused among other members of the family and this child who found her father but was rejected..
My interest in 23 and Me has vanished and I can't imagine connecting with strangers, despite shared genes. My last on line encounter was an odd email from a woman I had seen on 23 and Me for several years - listed as a second cousin. Unusual name. Looked her up. An aging rocker from years ago. Tats and a wild hairstyle. She looked a bit like my mother's sister. Overbite, uncorrected back then. We corresponded a bit and I think her father was my mother's cousin. But what of it? We had no history, nothing in common. I didn't give her my name when she asked.
For years, my mother didn't talk about her family. Her mother died when she was 4. Her father married his mistress a month later but left his children with his dead wife's sisters. You can imagine how well that went over back then,,,,
For years, my mother would get notices of "cousins" 4th of July picnics at a beach about 20 miles from us. My father always nixed it. He didn't like beaches, the 4th of July and attendant celebrations.
Odd that we children didn't push it, especially since we only had two cousins , much older, of our own. We would ask questions but my mother did not wish to discuss her childhood.
Years later, after my mother died, I found a box of memorabilia and a faded newspaper obit. My mother had written, "my uncle". He was married to my mother's aunt who raised her. So many secrets died with my mother.
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