The Pages of History

I was in that category of people who got the kind of degree that their parents often gently nudged wouldn't be very practical.  You know, a degree in English, or a degree in theater.  Those kind of majors are always cautioned with the question, "Don't you think you oughta have a back up plan?"  Mine was a degree in history.  The simplified question was, "What do you do with a history degree other than teach?"  I had no desire to teach so I really had no good answer to that question. 

But I knew I loved history.  I loved stories and I loved the stories that history had to tell.  I remember going to Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. a few years ago with my mom and grandparents.  We went up to Arlington house at the top of the hill.  As we walked through the rooms, crowds of people everywhere, we came upon one of the family bedrooms.  The comforter was spread neatly, the furniture arranged just so.  And then there was a tiny little step stool next to the bed.  It was clearly a child's bedroom.  And as silly as it sounds, I nearly burst into tears right there because I had this compulsory thought, "Somebody lived here.  Somebody's life unfolded here, and somebody's story was told here.  Life happened here."  The moment just seemed so monumental to me.  But, of course, those are the ones that you keep to yourself, confident that you're crazy and that no one else will understand.   

I imagine I've had other such sentimental moments, moments when I'm struck by the ordinariness of lives lived out on the pages of history.  My grandmother (the same one who missed the memo about the iceberg in the previous post) recently unearthed a treasure trove of family history when she found a bag of old parchment letters and notes, primarily exchanges from two distant relatives who were writing back and forth about the research they had been doing of the family tree.  Most of the letters were from 1932-1936, each one building on the previous one as the two family members dug up more and more info about who was related to whom, where they lived, and where they came from.  My grandmother even managed to find the original Civil War draft papers for my great-great-great-something-or-other.  A small piece of paper, neatly scripted, with instructions to report to such and such a post on this day in 1864.  This relative of mine would go to war in May of 1864, only to be captured one month later and be held a prisoner of war for over a year.  He was released and eventually honorably discharged in June of 1865.  We also have the original souvenir poster of his honorable discharge, as a reminder of what the "Brave Boys in Blue" did to serve their country.  I am always awestruck by such mementos of history.  I mean, think about it - the Civil War!  All those years ago, and now in 2011, here we are looking at the original draft and discharge papers of a man I have never known.  I felt like I had struck gold as I poured over the material, reading the letters, following the stories, wondering about their lives.

But what struck me even more than finding such relics of the Civil War was one letter in particular that noted the children of one side of the family.  It was neatly typed on two thin pieces of parchment, folded in thirds, looking like it had been tea-stained.  It listed the 10 children of one son and then the 9 children of the other son.  It was toward the bottom, though, where I caught the line "had 1 son no good." 

That's all the letter pretty much says about this son.  No good. 

How's that for being defined by history?

To have your entire life summed in one singular phrase like no good is a disconcerting thought, and it's not even my life that is being described.  I know history can be harsh at times, telling us not what we want to hear, but what we need to hear.  But history can often be skewed by those on the outside looking in, those who have watched from afar.  I can't help but wonder - what's the one sentence history will write about us?  Us - as individuals, us as a nation, us as a family?  I surely hope it's not no good.  And what are we doing about it to see to it that such sentences aren't left on the pages of history?  

I don't want my life to be defined by the phrase no good.  I wouldn't want my grandchildren or great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren to someday unearth a pile of letters, exchanges between two people tracing the family line, and have the sentence say about me one daughter, no good, or really anything else remotely resembling the concept. 

Instead, I hope the phrase well done, good and faithful servant applies to my life and those to follow.