Earlier this year Jim surprised me with an ancestry.ca dna kit and
signed me up for an ancestry.ca account. With a spirit of adventure and
with much anticipation I sat at the computer and logged into my account
for the first time.
Since the Howatt family tree had already
been charted, I had decided to explore my mother's side of the family
(MacDonald) first. It amazed me how quickly I was led to my maternal
grandparent's information and to my mother's name simply by adding t
he area where my mother had been born.
However, I discovered her name had been abbreviated to "Marg" and my
immediate excitement shifted to annoyance. My mother called us by our
full names, so it was important to me that her full name, Marguerite
Alexandra, should be reclaimed.
New to the site I looked for
ways to edit information, to restore the fullness of my mothers name,
but being new to the site I couldn't find an edit option, so I made a
conscious decision to put in my own information and come back to it the
following day. So I entered my name and current address, and then
clicked back to review the page containing my maternal grandparents, and
my mother's and her siblings information before closing.
AND
I was surprised to see my mother's name was no longer Marg, but now was listed as Marguerite.
I don't know how the site's technology allows for such shifts of subtle
(not so subtle to my heart) changes and I don't need to know. My focus
is on another shift that started unfolding in that moment...a deeper
awareness of our potency and how our actions, even small ones, can
affect another.
As I unfolded my story, so to was my mother's story affected. Marguerite's Story.
The Mi'kmaq believe that as we heal our lives, we heal the lives of our
ancestors seven generations back and we also help heal future
generations to come.
And that belief now envelops me with a more personal and deeper meaning.
As porous creatures, each of us an
assemblage of over one hundred trillion cells, it is our nature to be
affected, to affect and to respond. And although not all of life's
situations and occurrences are of our choosing, we do get to choose how
we respond: if we are reactionary, or if we move prayerfully and
thoughtfully...aware of ourselves, aware of others, and alive to the
fullness our choices.
