Preface
Previous editions of “Family Hunger” (like “ …- A Neel Family History” and other books with other family names) were written for my family members and those who were searching to see if we were related. This edition is written for public consumption.
This “Family Hunger –Breathe Life Into Your Own Family History” was written to motivate you to search for and create your own family history. This is not intended to be a “how to” book or a guide book to genealogy tools and resources, as there are already plenty of those out there. I’ve got a closet full of them!
Instead, I want to entice you to sit down at the Dinner-Table-of-Life, calling to you by wafting pleasant aromas from the other room, providing an attractive visual presentation on your plate, and to excite you to recognize and to feed your own "family hunger"! I want you to honor the feast that is your family! I hope my story will be an inspiration for you to search out your own ancestors, to talk to your living relatives, and leave morsels for your descendants and other relatives to find you by recording your own story!
Did you get that part about “talk to your living relatives”? While this is about dead people, it is also very much about living people!
I find that this process has been fulfilling for me. As this seems to be a time when reading and writing is somewhat a lost art, I want this to make you hungry for more of both.
It can also be said that being with family has fallen into distaste, and the move away from sitting down regularly with family at the dinner table is related to the failure of the fabric that holds our society together. I want to show you how gathering and writing family stories can help connect and preserve our identity as individuals and as family members, and also to restore the fabric of our community and culture, and society as a whole.
We are individuals in the context of our families and our communities! Each of us is a thread in the tapestry of our families’ quilts. We can do together what I cannot do alone!
What senses would flood your family feast? Mine is the vision and smells of fresh, home-made breads and rolls just out of the oven, and the sounds of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner gathering with the family. There is so much conversation I can’t keep track of it all, and I want to capture all of it! Can you hear the clinking of the silverware and my family’s best china plates and glasses being set out for this gathering? The kitchen is over-crowded and I can hardly get through there. What kinds of pies for desert were brought? Can I sneak some tastes of the warm food from the counter as it just came out of the oven? And when we sit down together I see there are leftover stains on Grandma’s tablecloth from food or drink from past meals shared, stains from Life, on the tablecloth and on our family books as we open them and tell stories and connect more deeply with each other by doing so. This would be nothing by myself. This is so rich with my family!
Most of the stories in this book were written by me, but some of the stories were written by other family members. Maybe you could think about these stories like recipes, inviting you to gather and write and preserve your own recipes into your own family cookbook. My wife’s cookbooks that she loves and uses often are filthy with stains with the ingredients of her delicious meals that she prepares and nurtures our family with. I hope my stories are interesting to you, and they are examples of the kinds of stories or recipes you could write for your own family.
This work causes me to want to ask more questions about my family history, wishing I still had those relatives around who are now gone (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, my missing brother, etc.) so I could ask them more questions. It causes me to be grateful for the family that I have access to, and to want to work to preserve those connections I have, but not necessarily at any cost, as some family dynamics cause me to be “sick” with “dis-ease” (or “not at ease”).
By sharing this I hope to inspire you to reach into the branches of your own family tree. I like this interpretation of “inspire”, which is: “to breathe life into”.
My themes throughout this book are: Write your own life story; Seek out and BE in relationship; Recognize and acknowledge and honor your chosen family (your friends or maybe your family members that you like to be with); Gather others’ life stories, and encourage them to write or record and share theirs before it is too late! The clock is ticking … DO IT! Thanks, I feel better now that I got that off my chest. Now it’s up to you.
Impression?
There is a saying that goes: “Impression without expression can lead to depression”, and I’m a firm believer that if life has impressed you, you need to express it for your own mental health. (Depression can take many forms, and there are many other ailments besides depression if you don’t clean out emotional infections.) My life has certainly impressed me. I’m expressing some of it here. Of course, I don’t want to puke on others in doing so.
If at any time that you are reading this book and you are inspired with thoughts of your own story, or stories about another family member, or you want to make contact with a relative before it’s too late, then put this book down and take advantage of your inspiration. Write down your own thoughts, write a paragraph, a chapter, or write your own book! Or make an audio or a video recording. And develop a style of organizing your records so you can find it again. (And if you develop a style of writing that invites readers to continue reading your stuff, that helps!)
Adoption and Foster Care
Part of my own strong feelings about families are about children and foster care, which is related to my own family-of-origin story as my oldest brother was adopted into my family. I have discovered feelings and questions about my family-of-origin that led me towards my chosen professional field of social work, and I have found some answers there, as well as more questions. At this point in time, after working in my current job as a social worker for more than 25 years in child protection and children’s mental health services, I have been involved with many families where parents have had children removed from their care. I also work with foster care alumni, who are graduates and survivors of the foster care system. I want to acknowledge with deep respect the pain that these human beings may have experienced, and survived from, after having had a family member taken away from them by a system such as the state and/or county governments and placed in foster care, guardianship, or adopted out. Some of you may have this deep family hunger also that reverberates with similar emotions.
My dream is that this “Family Hunger” book causes you to move beyond the tipping point of passive, mild curiosity or unspoken questions about your ancestors whose shoulders you stand upon, and to actively recognize that you are an ancestor of your actual or potential descendants. (This also means you have descendants of your creative ideas, values, and actions even if you never have children!) We do not live in isolation. We inspire and make impressions upon others, even if we aren’t aware of it or don’t want to. That person across the street may be watching you as you take care of your yard, or the person who picks up the piece of trash that you dropped may be inspired by your garbage! Be conscious, be intentional, and be respectful in your search and your mission. Be mindful! Leave something honorable behind, and be deliberately curious!
If this does not move you to record your own story (or stories about your ancestors), I hope you notice in a gentle and self-accepting way that this is OK, too. Some relationships from afar are safer for various reasons.
I hope you find my “Family Hunger” to be interesting, entertaining, and/or appetizing. Breathe life into your own family tree as you watch me breathe life into and out of my family tree, here.
This “Family Hunger –Breathe Life Into Your Own Family History” was written to motivate you to search for and create your own family history. This is not intended to be a “how to” book or a guide book to genealogy tools and resources, as there are already plenty of those out there. I’ve got a closet full of them!
Instead, I want to entice you to sit down at the Dinner-Table-of-Life, calling to you by wafting pleasant aromas from the other room, providing an attractive visual presentation on your plate, and to excite you to recognize and to feed your own "family hunger"! I want you to honor the feast that is your family! I hope my story will be an inspiration for you to search out your own ancestors, to talk to your living relatives, and leave morsels for your descendants and other relatives to find you by recording your own story!
Did you get that part about “talk to your living relatives”? While this is about dead people, it is also very much about living people!
I find that this process has been fulfilling for me. As this seems to be a time when reading and writing is somewhat a lost art, I want this to make you hungry for more of both.
It can also be said that being with family has fallen into distaste, and the move away from sitting down regularly with family at the dinner table is related to the failure of the fabric that holds our society together. I want to show you how gathering and writing family stories can help connect and preserve our identity as individuals and as family members, and also to restore the fabric of our community and culture, and society as a whole.
We are individuals in the context of our families and our communities! Each of us is a thread in the tapestry of our families’ quilts. We can do together what I cannot do alone!
What senses would flood your family feast? Mine is the vision and smells of fresh, home-made breads and rolls just out of the oven, and the sounds of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner gathering with the family. There is so much conversation I can’t keep track of it all, and I want to capture all of it! Can you hear the clinking of the silverware and my family’s best china plates and glasses being set out for this gathering? The kitchen is over-crowded and I can hardly get through there. What kinds of pies for desert were brought? Can I sneak some tastes of the warm food from the counter as it just came out of the oven? And when we sit down together I see there are leftover stains on Grandma’s tablecloth from food or drink from past meals shared, stains from Life, on the tablecloth and on our family books as we open them and tell stories and connect more deeply with each other by doing so. This would be nothing by myself. This is so rich with my family!
Most of the stories in this book were written by me, but some of the stories were written by other family members. Maybe you could think about these stories like recipes, inviting you to gather and write and preserve your own recipes into your own family cookbook. My wife’s cookbooks that she loves and uses often are filthy with stains with the ingredients of her delicious meals that she prepares and nurtures our family with. I hope my stories are interesting to you, and they are examples of the kinds of stories or recipes you could write for your own family.
This work causes me to want to ask more questions about my family history, wishing I still had those relatives around who are now gone (parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, my missing brother, etc.) so I could ask them more questions. It causes me to be grateful for the family that I have access to, and to want to work to preserve those connections I have, but not necessarily at any cost, as some family dynamics cause me to be “sick” with “dis-ease” (or “not at ease”).
By sharing this I hope to inspire you to reach into the branches of your own family tree. I like this interpretation of “inspire”, which is: “to breathe life into”.
My themes throughout this book are: Write your own life story; Seek out and BE in relationship; Recognize and acknowledge and honor your chosen family (your friends or maybe your family members that you like to be with); Gather others’ life stories, and encourage them to write or record and share theirs before it is too late! The clock is ticking … DO IT! Thanks, I feel better now that I got that off my chest. Now it’s up to you.
Impression?
There is a saying that goes: “Impression without expression can lead to depression”, and I’m a firm believer that if life has impressed you, you need to express it for your own mental health. (Depression can take many forms, and there are many other ailments besides depression if you don’t clean out emotional infections.) My life has certainly impressed me. I’m expressing some of it here. Of course, I don’t want to puke on others in doing so.
If at any time that you are reading this book and you are inspired with thoughts of your own story, or stories about another family member, or you want to make contact with a relative before it’s too late, then put this book down and take advantage of your inspiration. Write down your own thoughts, write a paragraph, a chapter, or write your own book! Or make an audio or a video recording. And develop a style of organizing your records so you can find it again. (And if you develop a style of writing that invites readers to continue reading your stuff, that helps!)
Adoption and Foster Care
Part of my own strong feelings about families are about children and foster care, which is related to my own family-of-origin story as my oldest brother was adopted into my family. I have discovered feelings and questions about my family-of-origin that led me towards my chosen professional field of social work, and I have found some answers there, as well as more questions. At this point in time, after working in my current job as a social worker for more than 25 years in child protection and children’s mental health services, I have been involved with many families where parents have had children removed from their care. I also work with foster care alumni, who are graduates and survivors of the foster care system. I want to acknowledge with deep respect the pain that these human beings may have experienced, and survived from, after having had a family member taken away from them by a system such as the state and/or county governments and placed in foster care, guardianship, or adopted out. Some of you may have this deep family hunger also that reverberates with similar emotions.
My dream is that this “Family Hunger” book causes you to move beyond the tipping point of passive, mild curiosity or unspoken questions about your ancestors whose shoulders you stand upon, and to actively recognize that you are an ancestor of your actual or potential descendants. (This also means you have descendants of your creative ideas, values, and actions even if you never have children!) We do not live in isolation. We inspire and make impressions upon others, even if we aren’t aware of it or don’t want to. That person across the street may be watching you as you take care of your yard, or the person who picks up the piece of trash that you dropped may be inspired by your garbage! Be conscious, be intentional, and be respectful in your search and your mission. Be mindful! Leave something honorable behind, and be deliberately curious!
If this does not move you to record your own story (or stories about your ancestors), I hope you notice in a gentle and self-accepting way that this is OK, too. Some relationships from afar are safer for various reasons.
I hope you find my “Family Hunger” to be interesting, entertaining, and/or appetizing. Breathe life into your own family tree as you watch me breathe life into and out of my family tree, here.