Puzzle Pieces

I knew my father’s adoptive parents for the first 8 years of my life. Limited by the understandings of a child, I could only know them on one level, Meme and Pep.
They were my grandparents. They adored me as their first grandchild. Hanging upon all of my firsts, my words and my little world,they knew me completely. There was so much I never knew about them.

A child may never know their grandparents or for that matter parents. Parents, having lived decades of life before seeing the face of their children, are a source of mystery. Curiosity and the adolescent belief, to know one is to know one’s ancestors, will draw out desires of knowing the past. Curiosity is what cements the relationship between grandchild and grandparent. Storytelling at the dinner table or around a camp fire is the age old link between generations. Grandparents hold the seat of honor because they hold all the keys. Their keys unlock a hidden past, an intimate knowledge, the mystery of the parent because grandparents knew your parents from their beginnings.

What happens to the child whose grandparents became ghosts before the stories could be told? Usually the story will die with the storyteller. But sometimes, a ghost will return from the past with momentum to tell their story. Because as in physics when you suppress a beach ball under water, the moment you let go the ball will surface. At some point a secret that is suppressed will be brought to light. It is only a matter of time before all is revealed.

This is my story of remembrances, research and ghosts. My mystery, my family history, has been given to me in puzzle pieces. Try as I might, I have not been able to piece them together. I would like to start at their beginning. Not knowing that piece, I can only begin with my own beginning, the first piece.