Diana Henderson

When we face daunting times, we can sink into the abyss or remember that the strength of our ancestors lives on in us. I’ve experienced more traumas and losses in this life than I care to relate. Like most of you, I’ve known defeat and immeasurable sorrow. I came through those passages because I had no choice. I was born to live the light, not to drown in shadow. Some days, the sheer number of challenges we face leaves me feeling impossibly small and incapable of meeting any of them. But even on those days, the truth of Spirit speaks to me and sparks ancestral memory. My Celtic and Cherokee ancestors were a hardy lot who lived through far greater devastation than I have ever known. I suspect your ancestors also fought through countless challenges to navigate the times in which they lived. They stood in the light of truth, sought wise counsel when needed, and honored the grace of the heart and soul. Here’s a little of the story of one of mine.

My maternal grandmother was only 11 when her family’s house burned down, and she was sold into indentured servitude for many years, leaving behind the life she had known. After her term of service ended, she had a young son but was left to raise him alone when her first husband died. She then married my grandfather, a widower with his own children, and they had my mother shortly before the Great Depression. She took on any job she could find to ensure her family made it through those years. She washed and mended clothes. She made quilts. She cleaned. She sewed my mother’s dresses from flour sacks. They grew enough in their garden to share with neighbors. Then, in the late 1940s, she lost her only son when he died in a car accident at the age of 28, leaving behind his young wife and son as her first husband had done with her.

Through it all, she somehow continued. Every day she prayed. She sang hymns as she washed the dishes or canned the vegetables we grew in the garden. I’ll always recall her pouring with sweat on those hot summer days with the double boiler steaming on the stove. Although she left this world decades ago (1973), I see her so clearly in my mind’s eye, digging in the dirt, planting hyacinths or tulips or tomatoes or beans. She was never idle. She endured so much and is one of many ancestors whose determination paved the way for those of us who followed.

We are the living dream of our ancestors. They fought hard for us to be. They clung to the vision of us thriving and held hope for what their families could become. They relied on the truth of their hearts, the strength of their backs and their spirits, and their abiding faith. Who am I to let them down? I hear you singing, MawMaw. I see you, PawPaw, working that garden, leaning on your walking stick as you walked through the forest, smoking your cigar in the rocker on the back porch. I hear you chanting, great grandmother. We will remember who we are. We will not falter.