WHO AM I

HOW MANY TIMES have you been married? ...and how long? ...together ...united but not? ...ridden by common law? ...nee attached? Are you orphaned? ...bastard? ...undocumented? ...alien? ...illegal? Where do you fit in the gist of things?

I am drawing out the plan for Reunion 39. That's thirty nine years of assembling from the east and west, the north and south. They've come from far-reaching islands and broad continent lands. Drawing invitation letters, feeling out ideas for choice from what suggested meal, the parlayed venue of mix and mingle, business hour, meal time and remapping to yet another year list as Reunion 40... for forty years of assembling from the east, west, north, and south; but for what?

A reunion is a reuniting of spirit, in this case, family. The extended family contended of those originals as we knew them wrought from local births and meet n greets. The siblings grown out of close reach of mom-and-pop households and some planted but never discovered where from. Planted just the same and the mystery surrounding them lingering through ages like a haunt expanding beyond their own existence to swallow any extensions therefrom. The reunion is intended to draw straight lines that reflect additions to a group whether by the preferred route of birth or by any of the more difficult routes to trace and verify for future generations. The validity of belonging. Without those lines anyone is left on the side rail under the comment "WHO AM I?" Without those valid lines our existence is nothing more than here say in the game of "he say she say." In the same order of things, we marry or form a union with another person of the same or alternate gender; and if we do not follow through with stated vows, we string out relationship after relationship confusing the entirety. Children brought in from such a relationship are not only confused themselves, but are the source of confusion for any others who try to rationalize their "place" in the family. "This is my mother from another brother of my dad's line," so goes an often interjected offering of an answer to the "who" introduction. Is the unmarried mate part of the family group? To complicate matters, even more, the adopted person who carries no family blood fares being held in resentment if he or she should inherit anything of the family passed down line. Resented by reason that they "are not actually family." Which name did they take in the record books where mother and father were not wedded but merely dating and reproducing by happenstance. What determines the family name of the out-of-wedlock child? How is that child represented in the family tree once his place mark is encountered? What of the child brought in from adoption yet have their own relative lines readily accessible? Or those "accepted" to live within the family as opposed to being left in the street as an abandoned or neglected waif? Their eventual question? "Who am I?" Who am I in the long-listed development of time and place where everyone with connections is someone if only in the place to rightfully and acceptably be labeled, "my baby" by someone? Anything else is a lie and those not fitting that category lives a lie. Of course, the child put into that position to wonder will eventually be an adult who, if time has not put him or her into a proper place becomes more indefinitely lost for who he or she really is. By the time they reach an adult age kin ships have moved on, possibly died, or been altered for their own existence in a wrong line.

Bring in DNA after trailing the ancestral line as far as documentation will tow the boat and we may end up with an espalier view of ourselves. Tracing with defrauded documents just became that much more impossible. Who was it identity thieving your credentials to cause you to record it all at a government office where anyone can see it... find it... refer to it, at will? ...using that and more. All that said, It's my turn to PLAN THE REUNION. I'm going to look past all the potential mistakes in what we are calling family especially since I am probably in the wrong line. The older kids' tease line, "Who's your daddy", hit home with most of our classmates during the war era of Vietnam, after those lost and left wondering in the war-time spent by World War, Cold War, and Korean War. It's my turn to spin the wheel. My turn to plan the biggest and best I can. I turn to registered speakers lists and reach out to hire a clown to do a presentation featuring Lincoln in his home state at the capital. My focus is on education to be merged via that clown in a brief oratory of history in an entertaining format. The clown, from Missouri, is a magician by trade. He swears he can pull Lincoln from his hat and lead into the next feature on my list. I reach out and grab discounted DNA package codes offered by ANCESTRY.COM for anyone in a family reunion gathering. I pull in screen-printed shoulder bags and engraved pens with reunion family name location and date applied. The traditional food item included on the menu along with a first or second-class main course and the option for sweet potato or bean pie tart... just to placate the palate. I spring for raffle gifts, raffle tickets, and throw in a preassembled backyard BBQ with ribs, brats, and chicken or shrimp satay menu bought out of pocket instead of from mailed-in reunion dues. I planned a "we aim to please" event, only to have it all reorganized with bank-donated free pens, canned green beans, and fried chicken with quartered potatoes boiled beyond repair. I canceled orders for raffle items... billiard room bar globe, prepaid golf rounds at a local golf course, and a local spa massage... money saved for not having the raffle. The undoing was by heart-felt cousins of the reunion... a different limb, who always do better than and ever know more than "those poor unfortunates" who are evidently in the wrong line... skewed for whatever real reason.

Careful always taken to draw out the rationale for married members and the notification of marital status. Letters mailed to Mrs. or just a still single or back to being alone Ms. in the family line. The passed down list of members grows but changes with new birth marriage and divorce. There are mates interchanged and those dearly departed. The quest to discover the tree that each hangs in from that familiar paternal cord or extended from beneath a maternal string which pulls her line one generation higher to drop from that father of the maternal line, and either line representational of dual nee event. The nee representing a marital clause of a family member. We all, then too, endeavor to be recorded as hanging from the appropriate tree... so to screen out that identity thief and the usurer... the dating or living together mate who takes the name of his or her beloved other in vain or as a pure opportunity. And here, mention of the map... the tree map for discerning proper lineage as being the best format to align family ties. The roots of that tree become the most important for the development of the line of origin... origin being the root of known source more visible in the life and time of those current to existing members. Once the tree's branches have been devised and each parental limb documented for the mate of that parent in the family line and the children brought forth from that mate, the direct siblings of each lineal parent and their mate with offspring listed for each generation known to existence. Those grown out from roots which must be dug into by means of a documented journey of a family name toted across landmasses by those dead and gone on throughout history in whatever portrayal of life that came to circumstance.

Circumstance being the subrogation of human stance when encountering heady religion, war, or fellowships perhaps not meaning harm, but being the major cause for harm done in the race to know one self. "Who am I?" when all before me is at a fault? DNA offers a place mat to control the edge of our own personal existence if we can reliably trace the credential and whereabouts of those ahead of us. To know oneself is to know where from he did come. WHO AM I?