Motivated by breakfast

Last Wednesday I had the pleasure of covering the Grandparents and Special Person Breakfast at Saco School. The food smelled wonderful, the cafeteria was at capacity and the smiling faces at each table was a wonderful way to start the week (being that Hump Day is my Monday.)

It did my heart and mind good to see so many families enjoying each other’s time elbow to elbow with their neighbors.

Growing up, I adored my grandfathers, Bud and Buck, but never knew my grandmothers. Grandma Hebert died four years before I was born and Grandma Caddell died two years before my birth. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for my mother and father, losing their mother’s at the age of 16 and 18, but it must have been tough.

I didn’t know much about these women I never had a chance to meet and following Wednesday’s Saco breakfast, I decided it was high time that I did. Growing up, we never talked much about my grandmothers and I imagine it was because of their premature deaths. I spent Thursday, my lone day off, researching my family on a popular family tree website and discovered that I am a fifth generation Montanan on my father’s side and that I am mostly Irish in decent. I learned that my great-great grandfather Hebert was a bricklayer in Butte, Mont., and my great-great-great grandfather Forgarty could neither read or write English and was a deserter from the U.S. Army in the early 1900’s (come, on, nobody’s perfect.)

Maybe the reason I know so little about my family tree is because of the fact I am a military brat and didn’t put down roots in Montana until 1996 when I started college at the U of M in Missoula (my birthplace.) Maybe it is because my parents were members of the 1970’s Hippie counterculture that fixated on “Peace” and settled for “Stuff.”

Happily, when my daughter got home from school the day I did all my research, she was pleased as punch to listen to me rattle off the day’s findings. Where my parents (and myself) failed 30-years, ago, my daughter will know her history growing up and for that I am thankful.

Seeing all those families sitting together eating breakfast in Saco was a huge inspiration to me and I thank the school and community for allowing me the visit. If you don’t know your family history, find it out. There is nothing so special as family and it is important to know who we are and where we come from to in turn become who we are supposed to be and to get where we need to be.

Mahalo and Aloha.