I regret not asking my mother more questions about our family.  Now she is gone and I won’t have answers when the time comes that my little girl asks.  This picture haunts me:  it is of my maternal great-grandmother whose name was Janie Ard.  I heard Mama say she was the prettiest woman in the (Texas) county.  As I understand she died in childbirth, so my grandmother never really had a mother.  That carried down to me as I think my own mama did not always know what to do as a mother.  I feel there is a strong family resemblance and I also feel a sort of pulling call from her but I do not know what to do about it.  I believe in heritage, genetics, and in traits passed down from one generation to the next.  I only wish I had gotten more information (if she even knew it) before Mama passed.  As it is all I am left with is a shockingly similar visual reminder of where I came from.  I think she was strong; I am compelled to look at her and often wonder what she is trying to convey.  But at least I know she is my kin and that I carry her DNA in my blood; my little one does as well.  If you are reading this and you have blood parents still living — and even grandparents — I urge you to find out everything you possibly can about your familial history while you are able.  The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw said:

“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

However I believe it matters and it also affects us … from the recollection of our past to the responsibility for our future.