The C.S. Café

Today we’re discussing the ancestral passing down of information and key components to our heritage. It used to be tradition to pass down things from those before us. Now we live in a generation who doesn’t want to receive.

We’ve passed down things from old wash pots, cast irons, quilts, clothes, instruments, and stories. The topic I want to get into today is the passing down of stories. Not just how a person grew up but where they came from. We want to know those traditions and cultural observances. Our grandparents aren’t getting any younger. There will come a time when we’ll be burying them as an alien to our own heritage.

How many of us can say that we truly know where we came from? What continent we originated from and from what region? I know most of us do not. We have this urgency to be everywhere and nowhere at the same damn time. We have time to plan our lives but no time to document history.

What is your story?

If you died at this very moment who would know your testimony?

We as people get too consumed in the tangible that we forget the intangible is just a snap away. In my family, we have a line of historians. Our tradition is that the youngest daughter of the youngest daughter becomes the next family historian. Guess what I am? Yep, the youngest of the youngest. It is not my time yet. Trust me, if it was, our family would be in trouble. I’m just playing, I know most of us as it is.

In our tradition, the current historian takes her daughter around the family. This is your great grandmother’s siblings and their lineage. My great grandmother was the youngest of 31 kids. My great great grandfather had 21 kids by his first wife and 10 by his second. If I knew the names of the original set then I’d be joyous. For now, we’ll just talk about the 10. The current historian will bring the next generation around the family so everyone knows who she is. She becomes the contact person for a numerous of things. She usually has the majority of family photos and she can recite which child belongs to who. I haven’t leveled up to that yet. You see where I’m going here?

We need to know those stories so that we know who our family is. We need to know the good and the bad. We also want to know so that when our kids grow up they aren’t getting involved with their own kin folk due to lack of knowledge.

Tell your children where they come from so they’ll never forget their roots.

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We have too many kids unintentionally getting involved with family members because no one sat still to record their heritage. We as upcoming ancestors need to tell our children about the pain and the happy days. How many of you can count someone in your family that has either dated, slept with, married, or had children by their cousins because they just didn’t know where they came from?

Tell these young ones now before your time is up!

Young people LISTEN with an urgency because when your ancestors are 6ft deep they don’t wanna hear it. Don’t try to wake their spirit!

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