When
researching the lives of my ancestors I am always cognizant of the larger
events happening in the world around them. Additionally, I constantly think
about the way of life and what would have been part of their daily consciousness
during that period of time. Sometimes I am able to find direct connections to
those events or ways of life like military service, prohibition, or the expansion
and prevalence of the railroad industry.
However,
it is important to remember (and sometimes I have to remind myself), that the
stories are there we just have to allow our ancestors to tell them. We can't
expect to find anything or wish to find a connection to a person or event. We
must look at their lives as we do our own and cherish facts (good and bad) like
memories. In my opinion, this is a critical in understanding your ancestors and
the lives that they lived.
It
is this same thought process that is important for us to remember in our own
lives as well. While there are many people who have a direct connection to
9/11, there are even more of us that have been impacted by this tragedy in one way or another. Our lives are different because of it and, in many instances,
the courses of our lives have been altered by it. Some more so than others.
This,
unfortunately, is an event that has shaped our time similar to how the various
events in history have shaped the lives of our ancestors. Not only does this
remain a vivid memory but the time in which we live has allowed us to
experience it as it happened, in real time, and also relive the horrors of that
September morning. This is both good and bad for obvious reasons.
We
had instant access to information and readily available (to a certain extent)
communication with loved ones. This wasn’t always the case and it actually
makes me wonder if previous generations were better off simply not knowing
until long after the fact. But, we can’t change the time in which we live, and,
similarly, we can ascribe modern technology and thought process to previous
generations… a common mistake that I see much too often.
This
is life and the world in which we live. While we may not always like it, we
have to accept it. And the same can be said for our ancestors. We may not
always agree with the common practices or mentalities of the time but those are
the realities of the world for that generation. It is difficult at times, but
we have to remove ourselves, and our modern perspective, from the lives of our
ancestors and let them tell us the stories about their lives.
