Holding Ghosts

Taking deep breaths in, then out. No words seem adequately able to explain why I feel so burdened. It has something to do with life and death, and my family. What if no one remembers the people I've loved after I'm gone? What if their memories die with me? How can I shoulder the histories of my mother, her sisters, my father, his brothers, my grandparents, and their parents? What if it's all lost? Even as I try to honor them and hold it all in my arms, it slips past me--like wisps of silk, or like sand. I paw through photographs, I surround myself with stories and hopes of what they were like just in case I'm the only one willing to be the keeper, the archivist. It's as if there is no future for me, only their past. I'm being buried in it.

I know, in my head, that this is ridiculous.

Though I love the idea of my "logical" family, rather than my biological one (this is from Maupin's Tales of the City series) I find myself with a sloth-esque need to cling to what's left, or what's known, of the people that I come from. I am decended from butchers, gardeners, vintners, miners, artists, and bakers. I have blood in my veins that came from nine countries. I'm proud, anxious, jealous, witty, dignified, honest, melancholy...and I know I had to get it from somebody. Because, believe me: I could do without a few of those traits.