Honoring ancestors, parents specifically

[misselin]

Re: Honoring ancestors, parents specifically

Short answer?

Do not honor those who are not honorable.

Long answer, and I love that I just found this thread since I've been struggling to explain my feelings on this to a few friends over the last few weeks -- acknowledge your roots no matter how negative they may be, they are as much a part of you as any other, but only honor those who have taught you how to make the best of yourself. I grew up being raised by both my parents -- irresponsible people that popped out children at first because they thought it would make them happy and later because they could get something with us -- and by my grandparents, two of the finest individuals you could ever meet. Where my father came from abuse and refused to ever leave it, and my mother is too afraid and too insecure to ever be a real person, my grandmother grew up a little German war civilian in WWII and my grandfather came from abuse and poverty in Kentucky. They had issues out the wazoo themselves, made plenty of mistakes, but fit to a T the phrase "do the best with what you have" for their family. They were the ones who kept a roof over our head, they were the ones who took care of us when we were sick, and they were the ones who tried for years to give their grandchildren a real understanding of self-respect and drive and meaning -- despite being every bit as flawed as my birth parents.

My grandmother's been gone for just over four years, my grandfather is still striding along like the stubborn retired military that he is, and all of my success and all of my positivity came from them. The struggles with my mental illness, the collapse of my parents' abusive bullshit, and now trying to get my brother and my sister through the same emotional landmine -- it's the qualities that they demonstrated to me across so many different situations that have come to define me to the people who love and respect me today, not my birth parents. I have no problem saying that I love my parents (from a healthy distance and after a lot of therapy) but respect? Nah. And honor? No, when I have my own children, it's my grandparents' story that will be passed on, not my parents.

My parents are the biological reason I am breathing but my grandparents are the root of my life and of all that I can and should strive to be, and never failed to live by the words they spoke to others. They're the reason the word 'honor' has any true meaning to me at all -- and so I honor them every day for that without any shame at all.

[Thorbjorn]

Re: Honoring ancestors, parents specifically

Ever have something that you didn't quite know what to do with, but you knew it had some purpose? Well, the "family tree" thing is one of those. I realized I have a small tree made of copper wire for the branches, roots and trunk. The leaves are pressed copper in the shape of maple leaves (OK, so it's not an oak, ash or elm ). It sits on a slice of agate that looks like a cross-section of a tree trunk. I have moved it all over the house, not knowing just where it belongs, and sort of neglecting it. It will fit nicely on the altar as a representation of the ancestor tree. In mulling over the responses here, especially about learning what not to do and how not to be like my parents (at least the parts I didn't like), I may yet put a tiny picture of them under the tree.