"Thanks To Love I Am Immortal"

                                      
If those census questionnaires that the government sends out every ten years ever ask for greater specificity regarding "ethnic origin" there wouldn't be enough space for me to list them.  My first paternal ancestor came here from Sweden in the 17the century.  All the inter-marriages since that time leave me with blood nourished in England, Ireland and Germany.  I am also ten percent Cherokee Indian on my maternal side. 

I have great respect for my ancestors and am always fascinated when I can track one down when doing ancestry research.  My GGGG grandfather fought with George Washington in the Revolutionary War and many of my kin fought on both sides of the Civil War.  My GGG grandfather was one of the earliest settlers in Missouri territory.  Up until my father most of my ancestors were farmers, hard working and proud.  I always get a kick when I read some snippet that one of my kin was a reader and wrote well.  Many, many of them were known to be great story tellers.  The past three lines of family have evidenced a great talent for humor and, since I prize that trait so highly, I revel in that as well.

The richness of my past proves indisputably the promise of the future.  I have planted roots with my own family that now stretches through three generations so that, long after I'm gone, I know that my blood, my DNA and inheritable character traits will prevail long into the latter half of this century! 

Just as my grandmother died before knowing microwave ovens, computers and digital technology I will have fled long before the development of technology that will serve the lives of my grandchildren.  And yet, I will be there, still "cell-relevant" and still having an influence on how their world turns.

When you think about it, isn't that remarkable?  Throw away all of the technology!  Throw away all of the tumult of world events!  What makes my immortality possible began with a single act of love!  This dynasty began in a small ten by ten room in Saigon, Vietnam!  It began before that!  It began the very moment I first met my wife!   In these days of Internet Romance, Social Media..and a devout skepticism about the possibility of love at first sight, it was absolutely true with me!  My dear Vietnamese wife and I began this dynasty with but the most humble wish...to be together. 

With that single, mutual act of love we established a future that we could have never foreseen.  We raised four children, did the best we could, then reluctantly let them go...to diverse regions and to diverse lives.  Yet, they carry within them a rich diversity of ancestry that influences them in the smallest of gestures and actions and will pass that on to their young as well!

This immortality is comforting and ennobling!  I have already wrote about the life experiences which proves to me that our soul lives on once we have passed. ( http://justcommonsense-lostinamerica.blogspot.com/2011/09/cell-phones-and-music-boxes-voices-of.html).  But it is comforting to know that we indeed leave something of ourselves on this earthly plain, to be carried along eternal time lines as a seed is carried to far off lands and takes root..and lives on.

And I have all of this immortality because of the simple act of love!  God is indeed generous with his rewards!