My Father's Inheritance Is My Own

Dad and I were more alike than I'd realized when young.

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We die, but our children inherit our genes. Genes don't die. Genes are immortal in the same way computer chips are immortal. Flesh and bone turn to dust; genes turn to the next host that will have them.

Every homo sapiens carries functioning genes from every homo sapiens who ever lived. The genes of Adam and Eve are still on the job, but every time they move to a new host their jobs get reassigned. The ones who used to run everything discover they now have a smaller office. Former drudges get promoted. Former big-shots get demoted.

All the genes we inherit change rank with every new birth. Despite their new rake, each gene still has something insistent to say. The most insistent of inherited genes are the ones we got from our very own Mom and Dad.

My cousin Karen recently found herself doing just what her mother used to do, and doing it in the same way that used to annoy her when her mother did it. "Oh no! I'm becoming my Mother". Other people worry they're becoming their Father, or Grand-father, or some other relative from even further past.

I think everyone has had a feeling or impulse that didn’t seem to come entirely from themselves. "Isn't that just what Uncle-so-and-so would say"? Maybe it was something Grandpa, would do . . . or dad . . . or Mom.

Even people who don't think about where they came from, are occasionally reminded by a gene who'd had nothing to say until right now.

It's always been that way.

Emerson wrote it poetically in his mid-eighteenth-century essay: Fate, "We sometimes see a change of expression in our companions and say his father or mother comes to the window of his eyes".

Genes will have their way. So too will God's grant of Free-Will. Your genes may be clamoring for this-or-that, but you, are authorized to agree, or decide otherwise.

The human that is yourself, is a coalition of genes, experience, and personal opinion - You get to decide who, or which, to listen to.

I muse more often these days about my own genes, experience, and personal opinion. I honor my ancestors, and question my opinions. Most of the musing is pleasant.

I remember a time when I was about ten years old and confined to a sick-bed. Dad came by. We both watched as the wind tumbled a cardboard box across the yard. Dad said, "I bet you wish you could shoot some arrows into that box". That was exactly what I was thinking.

How did he know?

I was always closer to Mom that to Dad, yet I'm pretty sure Mom would not have imagined I was thinking about shooting arrows into that box.

Dad did. We were more like each other than I'd thought.

More and more, I think I'm more like a whole bunch of people.

In many ways I'm more like Grandad Bill than either Mom or Dad. Grandad Bill was never an artist or scientist but, his mind worked as though he were. I'm confident I inherited Grandad Bill's curious-minded way of thinking.

I also feel a connection to my Great-Grandfather Hamilton even though he died when was barely old enough to remember anything. Great-Grandfather Hamilton had a sober way of doing everything he did.

I'm often accused of having no sense of humor. When other people laugh, I'm more inclined to smile.

Great-Grandfather Hamilton would smile at that last sentence.

Sometimes I've had darker thoughts, thoughts that seemed to come from, long, long ago. I don't have those thoughts anymore. They’ve faded as I've aged. They were rare even when I was young - though there were times when certain personal affronts seemed to call for blood.

My essay, Celtic Rage, was about those feelings. I thought there might be some leftover impulse inherited from my Celtic ancestors that occasionally howled in my civilized bones.

I thought the impulse dormant. That was before I found out about Uncle Mahlon

I wrote about Uncle Mahlon in, The Reckoning.

Uncle Mahlon acted-out his rage in a 1930's three-person shotgun murder, immediately followed by his suicide. Up till then Uncle Mahlon was a quiet unassuming man.

The rage-gene might come from much further back than Uncle Mahlon.

The Shipley name can be traced to one of the fighters that sailed with William-the-Conqueror to conquer England. This Norman Shipley was recorded in King William's Doomsday book as having been awarded the land which is now occupied by the town of, Shipley

William's lineage goes back to his Viking forbearers in Denmark. Maybe the oldest Shipley was a Viking. Maybe that accounts for the rage-gene.

Maybe it's my own damn fault.

The coalition of genes, experience, and personal opinion is hard to parse. It's even harder to ignore, especially when you don't think about it.

Some inheritance is clear.

I clearly got my love of reading from my Mom. I clearly got my solitary ways from my Dad, who got it from his dad, and I passed it on to my son, Ian. Every personality echoes personalities that came before.

Most folks like to think they think for themselves. That's only partially true - even so, genetic heritage can't be used as an excuse for bad behavior.

E Pluribus Unum (Out of Many, One) is the motto of our Country. The motto was intended to unite the many factious factions of the nation. The motto can also be used to explain how all the irascible souls amongst us got that way.

I may not see further because "I stand on the shoulders of giants", but I certainly stand on a lot of shoulders –

Even if I'm not always sure whose shoulders they are.

By K. L Shipley

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