I had no idea that was a word, did you? Memoirist.
Over the weekend I've become enamored with a TV show called "Who Do You Think You Are?" on The Learning Channel. In case you haven't seen it, the show features a celebrity who is curious about his/her historical background, parents or grandparents or even further back. Some have heard stories -negative or positive - about their family's history, allegiances, actions, and so on. Some seem to need to hear stories due to a lack of historical information within their family. Either way, usually the celebrity seems to find some peace, substance, answers, or closure from the information they glean.
At the beginning of the show the celebrity is introduced to some type of historical expert who has found the initial piece of information regarding the celebrity's questions. Then, through a series of referrals to other experts/locations/historical document storage facilities and curators eventually the celeb is able, (usually with the help of ancestry.com which seems to be a heavy duty sponsor of the show - surprise!) to piece together the story of his/her family's past.
One of the common threads in the show regardless of the information being sought is that someone in the family somewhere usually has kept a journal or memoir. They are in different forms, formats, some chronicle years of family life/history on a daily basis and some contain only basic, pertinent information and entries are infrequent, but in almost every case it has been this journal that has ultimately led the celebrity to find what he/she was looking for. Even if the journal does not turn out to have pertinent information, it still allows the celeb to know more about that member of their family who came decades or sometimes centuries before.
I guess the current form of that is blogging. So to my children or nieces or nephews or their children if you read this when I'm gone, let me just start by saying I adored you before I even laid eyes on you and do still. I plan to be watching you from Heaven. At the moment it doesn't seem so critical to keep up with chronicling the events of our family life but there may come a day when your children or theirs are curious about their great great grandparents, their affiliations, talents, relationships, and hobbies. Maybe you'll be standing on property that at one time belonged to our family or maybe you'll be sitting at a table that belonged to your 4x great grandparents and has been passed down to each generation and now resides in your kitchen. Or maybe you'll be neither of those things but randomly feel a stirring one day that leads you to learn more about your family tree. Any way it happens, family is always with you and behind you - sometimes when you want them to be and even when you don't.
There are so many reasons to have a blog. When I started this one at the urging of a friend, it was only to jot down thoughts. If you know me, you know I can't possibly SAY all the things I want to else your ears would bleed. Sort of still is, but since I'll never pen a memoir, we'll call this blog the closest thing to that.
More later. Mwwwahhh!!
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