I haven’t been posting all the gratitude moments that I’ve been writing.  I’m not feeling humbled and gracious all the time.  Frustrations arise.  Exhaustion is a constant. That’s just life.

One entry was accidentally deleted by me.  The others just aren’t flowing the way I’d like.  So, I have them saved in draft form.  Writing sometimes comes so easy to me.  Sometimes, I suck.  My expectation for this project is not to portray myself as a serious legitimate writer.  I’m not one.  My goal is that I’ll really start to receive, understand and interpret my purpose.  I am certain that I’m not alone in this search.  I am making a cognizant effort to publish moments, things, ideas, and instances that aren’t superficial or cliche.  Authentic.  Me.

I received my 23 & Me results today.  I was able to share these results with my father this evening.  I had actually bought my dad the kit first.  He’s not only our family historian, he’s also on the historical society for the city he has lived his entire life in.  He lives for this stuff.  Due to his various health issues, he’s having trouble filling the vile with enough spit to submit it.  My idea was that if we could collect his DNA information, I submit my test kit, and my older brother does his, we could then make a better determination as to what exactly my mom was.  She would’ve been so intrigued by this whole process.  She was certain of her Irish decent but I’m not sure if she knew enough to trace her family’s history back to any other countries.

My composition is the following: 57% British & Irish, 23% French & German, 3.6% Scandinavian, 1.5% Spanish & Portuguese, 14% Broadly Northwestern European, and a .1% Broadly Western Asian & North African.  My dad immediately assigned the British and Irish to my mother and the French and German to himself.  I think he found the results interesting.  And I got the impression that once he is able to get out of the rehab, he is now much more motivated to get enough sample material (spit) to test himself.

“Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.”

― James Baldwin

I now know what I am.  I wish my mom was here to share these results with her.

Even though my dad is currently unable to submit a simple saliva test, he is now privy to the most personal of information; his own DNA.  I was able to produce this for him.  I am thankful to 23 & Me that I was able to gift my dad with this.