The lies we tell ourselves
Apr. 14th, 2010 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompson"All this time I thought I'd been lying to myself, but I was just kidding myself."
—Peter Serafinowicz on Twitter
In yesterday's post, I wrote:
And then there are the stories my father used to tell, some of them true (sort of), and some of them more creative, and the screwy family legacy that's caused...Ah, but that's a story for another day. Perhaps tomorrow.
My father, my biological father, had already lived a good long while by the time I was born—a child of his senior years. He was many things, amongst those things a great storyteller. Some of the stories he told about his early life were even true, but I learned in my twenties that I had to take everything he had ever told me with a large grain of salt. Dad was a storyteller, not a historian. Now and again, in my research I'll come across a factoid and say, "What do you know? Dad may actually have been telling the truth that time." Other times I'll come across information that lets me know that what Dad said about the family history had been—how shall I put it?—highly colored by imagination and the desire to tell a good tale.
Like the story about my father's first wife, the mother of my half-brother, J. (who was actually only two years younger than my own mother).
Dad loved to say J's mother was descended from one of the great, old noble families of Ireland. My brother's middle name reflected this, the grand Irish name inserted between the plain vanilla of his first name and the plain vanilla of Thompson. On his birth certificate, his mother's maiden name is listed as the grand Irish patronymic, too.
I don't know if my brother bought into this fantasy, or if he just played along, but he never contradicted his old man. In the late seventies, J. was between wives and met up with a young lady who was quite interested in his family tree. When she heard about the grand Irish family, she did a lot of research, and on that basis, she married J. After she became pregnant, she left him, saying she'd only wanted a child, and moved back east to her rich establishment family, secure in the knowledge that even if she didn't care much for J. and his immediate family, with their drinking and their brooding, her child had good bloodlines.
That digging into family history, though, can be a tricky thing. I found the license from that first marriage, and other documents listing the sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, etc., of J's mother. Their name was not the same as that grand one. A few letters, rearranged, made all the difference, turning a common German name into a noble Irish one. So tempting to rewrite history with just a few rearranged and changed letters. Many a person throughout history has done the same. Dad obviously couldn't resist. It made such a good story, after all. And who would ever be the wiser?
I've thought about Jack's wife often since finding those documents, how that son of hers would be in his thirties, raised, no doubt, on stories of being from one of the great families of Ireland. If by some fluke I met him, would I tell him to his face that it was just a story? Probably not. It's entirely possible he wouldn't give a damn, maybe hated all the stories about his blue blood. Maybe he thinks all family histories are stupid hogwash. I'm not about to be the one to ruin those stories, all the same. I remember how I felt the first time I realized that one of Dad's cherished tales was just so much sugar and air. No, I won't be the one who tells him.
—Peter Serafinowicz on Twitter
In yesterday's post, I wrote:
And then there are the stories my father used to tell, some of them true (sort of), and some of them more creative, and the screwy family legacy that's caused...Ah, but that's a story for another day. Perhaps tomorrow.
My father, my biological father, had already lived a good long while by the time I was born—a child of his senior years. He was many things, amongst those things a great storyteller. Some of the stories he told about his early life were even true, but I learned in my twenties that I had to take everything he had ever told me with a large grain of salt. Dad was a storyteller, not a historian. Now and again, in my research I'll come across a factoid and say, "What do you know? Dad may actually have been telling the truth that time." Other times I'll come across information that lets me know that what Dad said about the family history had been—how shall I put it?—highly colored by imagination and the desire to tell a good tale.
Like the story about my father's first wife, the mother of my half-brother, J. (who was actually only two years younger than my own mother).
Dad loved to say J's mother was descended from one of the great, old noble families of Ireland. My brother's middle name reflected this, the grand Irish name inserted between the plain vanilla of his first name and the plain vanilla of Thompson. On his birth certificate, his mother's maiden name is listed as the grand Irish patronymic, too.
I don't know if my brother bought into this fantasy, or if he just played along, but he never contradicted his old man. In the late seventies, J. was between wives and met up with a young lady who was quite interested in his family tree. When she heard about the grand Irish family, she did a lot of research, and on that basis, she married J. After she became pregnant, she left him, saying she'd only wanted a child, and moved back east to her rich establishment family, secure in the knowledge that even if she didn't care much for J. and his immediate family, with their drinking and their brooding, her child had good bloodlines.
That digging into family history, though, can be a tricky thing. I found the license from that first marriage, and other documents listing the sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, etc., of J's mother. Their name was not the same as that grand one. A few letters, rearranged, made all the difference, turning a common German name into a noble Irish one. So tempting to rewrite history with just a few rearranged and changed letters. Many a person throughout history has done the same. Dad obviously couldn't resist. It made such a good story, after all. And who would ever be the wiser?
I've thought about Jack's wife often since finding those documents, how that son of hers would be in his thirties, raised, no doubt, on stories of being from one of the great families of Ireland. If by some fluke I met him, would I tell him to his face that it was just a story? Probably not. It's entirely possible he wouldn't give a damn, maybe hated all the stories about his blue blood. Maybe he thinks all family histories are stupid hogwash. I'm not about to be the one to ruin those stories, all the same. I remember how I felt the first time I realized that one of Dad's cherished tales was just so much sugar and air. No, I won't be the one who tells him.
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Date: 2010-04-14 07:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 08:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-14 09:14 pm (UTC)Bashir: So of the stories you told me, which ones were true?
Garak: My dear doctor, all of them were true.
Bashir: What about the lies?
Garak: Especially the lies.
--Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Episode: The Wire
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Date: 2010-04-14 09:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-04-16 11:59 pm (UTC)Sorry, that's what I started thinking of as I read.
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Date: 2010-04-17 07:41 pm (UTC)