THE STORY TELLERS

The author of this piece is unknown but it expresses the philosophy of many members of the Killough family.

The Story Tellers..... We are the chosen.

My feelings are that in each family there is one who seems called to find
the ancestors, to put flesh on their bones and make them live again, to tell
the family story and to feel that somehow they know and approve.  To me, doing
genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into
all who have gone before.

We are the story tellers of the tribe.  All tribes have one.  We have been
called, as it were, by our genes.  Those who have gone before cry out to us:  
Tell our story.  So, we do.  In finding them, we somehow find ourselves.
How many graves have I stood before now and cried?  I have lost count.  How
many times have I told the ancestors you have a wonderful family; you would be
proud of us?  How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow
there was love there for me?  I cannot say.  It goes beyond just documenting
facts.  It goes to who I am and why I do the things I do.  It goes to seeing a
cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference and saying, I
can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my
flesh.  It goes to doing something about it.  It goes to pride in what our
ancestors were able to accomplish, how they contributed to what we are today.
It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or
giving up, their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family  It
goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a Nation.  It goes to
a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us that we
might be born who we are, that we might remember them.  So we do.  With love  
and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them
and they are us.  So, as a scribe called, I tell the story of my family.  It
is up to that one called in the next generation to answer the call and take
their place in the long line of family story tellers.  That is why I do my
family genealogy and that is what calls those young and old to step up and
put flesh on the bones.
( Unknown Author )

 

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