Family myth

One of the real luxuries of not having a regular job is being able to wake up and read rather than rushing to get out of the house.

This morning as I was walking in the wonderful autumn sunshine by 8:30 and later over my morning tea, a certain sentence from Tess Gerritsen's Silent Girl kept rolling around in my mind.

"Family mythology has far more meaning to us than the truth. It helps us cope with the sheer insignificance of our own lives."

I realize my identity is tied up in my family history, my WASP grandmother's devotion to her husband, her brother's persnickety demands to only eat white eggs, the death of her one-year daughter in her arms, my great-grandmother's husband's desertion, the importance of being able to join the DAR.

Likewise there's my father's Franco-Canadian background being raised on a lighthouse island off the coast of Nova Scotia, my aunt being sent to a relative because her mother couldn't cope with her daughter trying to scale the lighthouse walls to life-threatening heights, their their move to the Boston area for a better living. There's the aunt who made beautiful clothes and the one who had a life-long affair with the married owner of the restaurant where she worked.

How many of the stories I was told as a child are true, I really don't know. Maybe they've been enlarged over the years either by the teller or my memory.

Whatever the truth, they are the foundation, on which I built my own identity and myths. My life is insignificant to most of the world. Hopefully to my daughter and some close friends, it has significance. Even if it doesn't it is significant to me.