calling the ancestors

I have a good friend who can trace her female ancestry back to the 1700s and beyond. These women settled in what is now Texas, bought land, went to school, prospered.

That is not my story. What I know of my Ukrainian ancestors is that the lucky ones, the ones young enough to endure months of travel in the belly of a ship, were sent away to America. The rest were murdered, buried in the unmarked graves that tanks now roll over.

My grandmother was one of the lucky ones, the youngest, the most unwilling to leave home. She brought a sepia photograph of her mother and her two older sisters with her, three women dressed for a studio portrait in bustles with their hair done up. My great-grandmother is flanked by her remaining two daughters, all with some feature…a nose, the shape of their eyes, the curve of an eyebrow, that I can trace to my own face, or my daughter’s, or now, my granddaughter’s.

But I do not know their names. Names that no longer live in the mouths of the living. I didn’t see this photograph until it was too late to ask my grandmother to name them, to give them body and laughter, a favorite flower, a cherished meal.

And so their photograph lives on my altar, and each morning I say I am so sorry I did not know you before it was all destroyed in smoke and flame, before I could speak your names.

Now I wonder if my rituals, gathered over the years like mismatched shells on a beach, are potent enough to feed them the nourishment they need so that they will be glad when I raise up my voice and call for help. What chants can I sing in a language not their own, beating a drum, come, come. Come now. A shadow has fallen across the land threatening life itself. Come.

How do I reweave the rope that binds them to me so that I walk accompanied by their living presence on my journey through this underworld, a shadowtime that tests my ability to sustain my connection to spirit.

Is it sufficient to beat a kitchen pot for lack of a drum, to light a candle and sing a spontaneous plea for guidance in English? And can I trust what I hear in return?

We hope so, a soft voice says. We hope you can hear what we say. You’ve called out to us and we’ve heard.

This is an old story, they say. The aggressor, the dictator, the thief. Greed cruelty and violence. We know these things from our own lives. And now from the suffering inflicted on so many.

But it’s not the end. It’s the chasm between the old ways and the new that is the birth canal. It is the dark tunnel of gestation and do you remember birthing your own child and how you did not believe the labor would ever end? And then she slipped out whole and beautiful and hungry to grasp onto your nipple for life itself.

This is what is being birthed now, the creation of new stories…of new life new stars new comets new planets new languages new plants new ways of making art. New relationships. New narratives of forgiveness for ourselves and others so that we can finally put down the burdens of shame and regret we have carried for too long.This unmooring, this new story that is ever-changing will connect us to others who have survived the dark times not through violence but through kindness. Sharing resources, listening deeply to each other’s pain, grieving losses and celebrating victories. Offering our broken hearts to each other as holy food. Daring to find joy in the midst of sorrow. Daring to be awed by the smallest green shoot.

Call on us when you need a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on.

It will get better. Hold tight to kindness and compassion. They will not fail you as guides to a better world.

And this: never be afraid to give your love away. Extravagantly, Generously. You can call on us with the drum beat of your gloriously overflowing heart. We will come. You know our name.

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Read more stories like this in my book The Ripening: Essays on Love, Loss, Marriage and Aging available on Amazon.