ancestral help at heartbreak hill

To hear Brandi read the essay instead, click here: https://youtu.be/2BQ25KL40qA

I was ready for 2020 to end. It was a wrecking year in a lot of ways, and I wanted a change. We obeyed so many rules, and worked so hard to stay resilient. We pivoted so often I forgot what direction we were even headed in. What is the point of school? What role do businesses and restaurants and shared worship play in our lives? What makes family time meaningful? How do I measure a day? Why do we wear pants?

Yes, friends, I am describing a slow descent into the land of existential crises! Thanks be to God for 2021, for a new start, a new year.

Wait, What?!? The pandemic is getting worse? My kids are still not in school? I have to teach another semester wondering what the goal even is? We are still safer at home? The vaccine is how many weeks away from my veins?

We made it! Only to realize the goal was never at the end of 2020, but in some remote, undisclosed location. Fantastic. What in the actual hell is happening here? Things are not easier. They are still hard. Maybe harder.

Anyone familiar with my writing knows I’m a huge fan of context. Today, I suggest you find your own familial context (genetic or chosen) to get you through this moment. When I feel despair, I sometimes wallow, full disclosure! But there are moments when I instead have the wisdom to look around, seeing the lives of others. I am not alone in my despair. I am not even suffering the most, or the most originally. Seeing the resilience of others motivates me to stay the course in my own life. To “just keep swimming,” as the oracle of Dory would say, or, in the words of Anna of Arendelle, to “do the next right thing.” (Clearly my context is children’s movies).

This week, I’ve been thinking about the women who made me. I come from a long line of badassery. Take my maternal grandmother, who was given 4 names at birth, and, true to form, allowed her grandkids to change her name halfway into her tenure as a grandmother. Mamaw, or Nanny, as the young kids claim, lives in the mountains of East Tennessee. Born and raised on the East Coast, she eventually landed in the South, constantly adjusting to different cultural norms along the way. She had 11 kids, and has buried 6 of them. Her husband was a Sailor in the Navy, constantly at sea. I am descended from a woman who survived unspeakable grief, who often parented alone, who kept moving to places whose people baffled her, who found refuge in the Lord as she sang to Him, and who learned to pray because there was so much she faced beyond her control. And did I mention she never learned to drive? And that she had to use cloth diapers for all those kids?! When I think of Mamaw/Nanny, I know I can do hard things, and find restoration through music and prayer.

I also look to my paternal grandmother, Zelmadean. Called Iney by all who love her, she has raised generations of kids on her property. Literally. She grew a field-sized garden every year, planting, tilling, weeding and harvesting mostly alone. Until a few years ago, I never cooked green beans that weren’t canned from her garden, or ate strawberry preserves she didn’t make. She composted before it was cool, and made every childhood dress I wore. She broke her ankles pruning trees in her 80s, and still push mows her own yard if we take too long to do it. Feeding 20+ people singlehandedly every Sunday after church for decades, Iney always had a smile, always sat last, and washed every dish in boiling hot water unless we shamed her into a seat. I never heard her speak ill of others, and I watched her bite her tongue with kind humor. To top it all off, when she had my dad, her firstborn, her husband was fighting in the Korean War. He didn’t meet their son until well into his second year of life, and she raised him alone until then. When I think of Iney, I know I was made to create, and to keep going when I think I can’t.

My mom, Cheryl Kathryn, Kathy, Shirl, Kat, Mumzy, is a remarkable woman. Her legacy to me is that a well-lived life is a growing-learning-adventuring life. She constantly tries new things. Her marriage of nearly 50 years has taught us how to fall in love over and over, how to forgive and apologize, how to pull for each other in good and bad. She is loyal and selfless to her friends and family, generous to strangers at the grocery store. She is also hilarious, and chooses to laugh at a lot of crossroads that might wreck others. She is glamorous, a big city girl living in a rural community. Rather than being above it all though, she brings her excessive joy and beauty and light into dark, disappointing spaces. She has also been slowly and quickly losing her hearing since her 20s, and this devastating struggle has revealed a woman who refuses to give up. Knowing how easy it would be to hide away, she instead puts herself out there, trusting the kindness of others, leading with her vulnerability, engaging even when it is hard. My mom sees my weaknesses and loves me all the harder for them, reminding me that we all need a place to fall apart and be caught in loving arms. When I think of Mumzy, I know I’ll survive, and the story I’ll tell will be devastating and hilarious.

These women are warriors. When I think I’ve had enough, they remind me I can take more than 2021 can dish out. 2020 ended. Everything is still terrible. It’s also the only life we get, and we have to find a way to give thanks if we are still able. So many lives have been taken. My hope is that each of us will affirm what we have learned from those around us, and use it to live the moments ahead.

My dad is a marathoner, and I’ve been lucky enough to cheer him on in many races. One of my favorite memories was the first time he ran Boston. Before the race, the idea of Heartbreak Hill was mythically attractive, conjuring the epic, legendary nature of the marathon adventure. Encountering Heartbreak Hill on the course is a different tale altogether. 20 miles in, when your knees and hips feel every impact, when cognitive focus is starting to wane, runners begin a hill that doesn’t stop for miles. A relentless incline, just when the body desperately needs a break. My dad doesn’t know how to quit, and knows there is no way to finish unless you finish. He finished.

My friends, the early days of 2021 is our Heartbreak Hill. It sounded fun back in 2020, as if we would be able to feel the finish coming by the time we arrived here. Living it is a different tale altogether. Search your own family stories for how your people kept going, even when it seemed impossible. The only way to finish is to finish, and each of us has an ancestor (by blood or choice) who can show us the way. Find yours. Tell the stories. Grab a hand, and keep going.