Over the Fence: Guarding the family tree

There’s a reason why family trees have that particular moniker. To begin with, trees have branches, obviously, just as families do. These branches don’t always grow strong and straight. Sometimes, they fail to grow properly at all. Sometimes, the fruit they bear never makes it to harvest. The tree may often be buffeted and battered by the harsh winds of death and disease.

Considering that truth reminds me of my mother’s grandmother and namesake, Cora Drusilla Smith. Cora died of meningitis when she was 26 years old, leaving my grandmother motherless at the age of 5. When my grandmother first told me of this many years later, she wept. Even though she was 82 at the time she related the story, losing her mother still left a huge hole in her heart. At 26, her mother no doubt planned to have more children, but it wasn’t to be. That branch of the tree had been irreparably splintered.

In my husband’s family, his 19-year-old cousin, an excellent student and star member of his college swim team, bought a cross-country airline ticket to San Francisco. When he arrived, he rented a car, drove to the Golden Gate Bridge and jumped off. I think the tree actually buckled that time, under such a heavy burden of sorrow and loss.

In my own experience, my son unexpectedly died at just under five months old. One day he was a happy, gurgling baby, and the next day, he was gone. And with him went his future, all the precious expectations of a life cut short, and another branch of the tree.

I recently acquired a new friend who told me she had lost her own son a few years ago in an accident. The only saving grace was that her son left behind some frozen sperm, and as a result, his wife was able to give birth to a daughter 18 months later. I suppose you could say that in his case, the tree did its best to mend itself.

Our family trees constantly face the varying winds of chance and time. If you can trace your ancestors back a few hundred years, you’ll probably see that cracks and schisms occur often. You may realize how miraculous it is that the tree is still surviving and still stretching its branches to an uncertain sky.

In today’s world, mostly because of war, drugs and pestilence, family trees are in more peril than ever. Knowing this, I try to leave nothing to chance and guard my part of the tree as closely as I can. I want it to grow sturdy and tall, with all its branches bearing fruit and, ideally, free of disease. I want its bark to be thick and tough so that when storms come it will be able to withstand them and grow happily into the future.

I have concluded that in order to continue to prevail, a family tree must not only be strong enough to survive the storms, but also smart enough to bend with the wind.