{"id":744,"date":"2022-01-15T02:30:06","date_gmt":"2022-01-15T02:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/?p=744"},"modified":"2022-01-15T17:26:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-15T17:26:20","slug":"where-i-am-rooted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/15\/where-i-am-rooted\/","title":{"rendered":"Where I am Rooted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It seems whenever I look forward, I feel the urge to look back as well\u2026to confirm how I am rooted and what matters most.\u00a0\u00a0For me, another year has ended, and another Life List was completed.\u00a0\u00a0This one was short, but deeply meaningful.\u00a0\u00a0As we get older, it is a natural process to reflect back on our life.\u00a0\u00a0How did we get to the place that we are?\u00a0\u00a0Where did the time go?\u00a0\u00a0How is it possible that my sons are the ages that they are?\u00a0\u00a0For me, 2021 was a year in which I contemplated the roots from which I sprang, and the idea that someday I will exist on earth without my parents.\u00a0\u00a0My thoughts immediately turned to my grandparents when I thought about this.\u00a0\u00a0As close as I felt to them when they were alive, how much did I really know about them?\u00a0\u00a0To start this process of unraveling to understand, I made it my mission to visit the birthplace of each of my grandparents in 2021.\u00a0\u00a0I started just after New Year\u2019s with a retreat to a tiny and very old cabin in a remote part of Illinois.\u00a0\u00a0My paternal grandmother used to tell me about the corn (\u201cKnee high by 4th<\/sup>\u00a0of July!\u201d) and the family farm where she spent time with her own grandparents, her brother and her deaf parents.\u00a0\u00a0I had a little trouble finding her childhood home \u2013 scouring 100 year old phone books and plot plans to no avail \u2013 but the essence of my grandmother was in the pores of this little town.\u00a0\u00a0My maternal grandmother\u2019s birthplace visit was also to Illinois, but this time to a suburb of Chicago\u2026which made a nice transition to an opportunity to take in my first game at Wrigley, and also happened to fall on my birthday in the late spring.\u00a0\u00a0Her home was neat and trim – it reminded me of her elegance and grace.\u00a0\u00a0Deep into the summer, I drove to upstate New York to see the beautiful home my paternal grandfather lived as a small boy.\u00a0\u00a0The rain pattered on my face as I stood in front of his house.\u00a0\u00a0I wondered how many bowls of ice cream he ate sitting at the kitchen table, his most favorite after dinner treat in my memory.\u00a0\u00a0My final visit, at the very tail end of the year, was to a dot on the map of a town in the middle of Minnesota.\u00a0\u00a0One stop light created the core of my maternal grandfather\u2019s backdrop to the quiet and intelligent man he became.\u00a0\u00a0The temperature was cold, and the wind brutal, but I packed my snow shoes and moved about in a small forest near my rented cabin thinking about him.\u00a0\u00a0His home was white and the ground covered in fresh puffs of snow, as if to remind me that he grew up in a real life snow globe, shaken to dust you with flakes when you least expected it.\u00a0\u00a0I traveled hundreds of miles by car, a fewer number by foot, slept in AirBnBs and hotels, touched the gravestones of great and great-great grandparents\u2026all in an effort to understand where I came from.\u00a0\u00a0Of all I learned, the biggest thing I reinforced is: \u201cThe greatest thing in life is quite simple, it\u2019s people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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                  It seems whenever I look forward, I feel the urge to look back as well\u2026to confirm how I am rooted and what matters most.\u00a0\u00a0For me, another year has ended, and another Life List was completed.\u00a0\u00a0This one was short, but deeply meaningful.\u00a0\u00a0As we get older, it is a natural process to reflect back on our life.\u00a0\u00a0How did we get to the place that we are?\u00a0\u00a0Where did the time go?\u00a0\u00a0How is it possible that my sons are the ages that they are?\u00a0\u00a0For me, 2021 was a year in which I contemplated the roots from which I sprang, and the idea that someday I will exist on earth without my parents.\u00a0\u00a0My thoughts immediately turned to my grandparents when I thought about this.\u00a0\u00a0As close as I felt to them when they were alive, how much did I really know about them?\u00a0\u00a0To start this process of unraveling to understand, I made it my mission to visit the birthplace of each of my grandparents in 2021.\u00a0\u00a0I started just after New Year\u2019s with a retreat to a tiny and very old cabin in a remote part of Illinois.\u00a0\u00a0My paternal grandmother used to tell me about the corn (\u201cKnee high by 4th\u00a0of July!\u201d) and the family farm where she spent time with her own grandparents, her brother and her deaf parents.\u00a0\u00a0I had a little trouble finding her childhood home \u2013 scouring 100 year old phone books and plot plans to no avail \u2013 but the essence of my grandmother was in the pores of this little town.\u00a0\u00a0My maternal grandmother\u2019s birthplace visit was also to Illinois, but this time to a suburb of Chicago\u2026which made a nice transition to an opportunity to take in my first game at Wrigley, and also happened to fall on my birthday in the late spring.\u00a0\u00a0Her home was neat and trim – it reminded me of her elegance and grace.\u00a0\u00a0Deep into the summer, I drove to upstate New York to see the beautiful home my paternal grandfather lived as a small boy.\u00a0\u00a0The rain pattered on my face as I stood in front of his house.\u00a0\u00a0I wondered how many bowls of ice cream he ate sitting at the kitchen table, his most favorite after dinner treat in my memory.\u00a0\u00a0My final visit, at the very tail end of the year, was to a dot on the map of a town in the middle of Minnesota.\u00a0\u00a0One stop light created the core of my maternal grandfather\u2019s backdrop to the quiet and intelligent man he became.\u00a0\u00a0The temperature was cold, and the wind brutal, but I packed my snow shoes and moved about in a small forest near my rented cabin thinking about him.\u00a0\u00a0His home was white and the ground covered in fresh puffs of snow, as if to remind me that he grew up in a real life snow globe, shaken to dust you with flakes when you least expected it.\u00a0\u00a0I traveled hundreds of miles by car, a fewer number by foot, slept in AirBnBs and hotels, touched the gravestones of great and great-great grandparents\u2026all in an effort to understand where I came from.\u00a0\u00a0Of all I learned, the biggest thing I reinforced is: \u201cThe greatest thing in life is quite simple, it\u2019s people.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":764,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,27,31,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2021-goals","category-genealogy","category-goals","category-life-lessons"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":790,"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744\/revisions\/790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3boysandmylens.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}