When my mother lay dying she asked me to find her history for her; my father's was well known but she had always hungered to know her ancestors. I made promise to do this, even though we both knew it would not be before she died. When we buried her I renewed that promise, resolving even as I spoke over her to find her family's long past. That was September, 1987.
I struggled to find the time. Then, slowly, slowly, a drop at a time, a name, a line, a place, and then a gush of findings and names came out of the past into my hands through the work of cousins, living and dead. I was grateful for their help.
My promise was redeemed.
I discovered that my mother counted her descent from Robert the Bruce through women and men, brave and good. I read their records through the long windings of time; in the lives of warriors and farmers, smiths and teachers. I discovered this in bare time to take the knowledge into the theatre with me and see Braveheart. Robert the Bruce was just a name when the lights went dim. Into that theatre I also took my husband, a Craig, who had boasted of his Highland blood.
When we left the theatre we were both silent. He never again spoke of his roots.
The Bruce redeemed himself; the Craig did not.
I would discover that Craigs breed true to their falsity. Some stories are too true to recount whole in one speaking. This is one such story.
My mother was a mathematician who tutored pure projective geometry at Berkeley in the 20s and 30s. She carried courage with her through life. Her veins flowed with endurance The Bruce would have recognized.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
