Buried Family Secrets

Happy Belated Mother's Day to all the moms out there!  My beautiful goddaughter Jamie gave me these lovely tulips yesterday.  She is the greatest and I got all the benefits of Mother's Day without that pesky giving-birth-and-raising-a-baby thing.

Everyone who knows my mom loves her.  It was actually annoying in high school, when I would complain to friends about what a terrible tyrant she was and inevitably my friends would take her side.  Sigh.  I lucked out in the mom department, big time.

I've never been one of those people who has a great fascination with family genealogy.  I think this stemmed from the time in high school when my dad told me that Brendan Behan, the Irish playwright, was a distant relative on his side.  Right away, I ran to the internets and googled this famous relative.  The first hit was titled, "Brendan Behan:  Too Young to Die, Too Drunk to Live."  After that, I was afraid of what I might find on the twisted branches of my family tree, so I mostly avoid even thinking about it.

Last night, I was reminded of what a great decision ignoring my family history has been.  My mom started talking about her grandfather.  She had gone to the cemetery where he was buried years after his death and asked for help locating his grave.  The woman at the front desk looked it up for her, and it turns out that my great-grandfather has not one but two graves.  How is this possible?  Maybe this obesity thing is genetic and I have him to thank for my fat battle?  No.  It turns out his body is buried in one grave... and his leg is buried in another. Apparently he lost his leg in a streetcar accident years before he died, and it was important enough to him to have it buried.

The best part about this story is that my mom has the most tragic face ever when she is relating sad news.  Her brow furrows and she looks down as if she is in pain.  She is a very empathetic person.  Anyway, she was telling us how poor her Irish immigrant relatives were, so poor that some of them are buried six to a grave.  Annie chirped up and asked how they had afforded burying a leg if they were so poor.  (She also wondered if the leg had a mini leg coffin).  My mom shook her head.  "No, I'm sure it wasn't that expensive.  Someone else died and they just tossed the leg in there after him."  Dead serious.  Annie replied, "Tossed the leg in?  Like held it by the foot and swung it in?"  We're not a sensitive family.

So yeah, I am staying away from learning about the Harpers and the Wrights of the past.  The ones currently walking the earth are frightening enough.  There's no point in getting worked up about the amputees already dead.