Ooops... another H

How's my mental health today?


The last few days have felt like I'm on the end of a yo-yo string because my mood and energy levels have been going up and down. That's the reality of my life with bipolar disorder.

Sticking with the A-Z challenge is both easy and difficult depending on what my mood and energy levels are. I realized late yesterday that I had gotten ahead of the schedule when I published my H is for Hallelujah blog post on Easter Sunday.

That left me wondering do I skip blogging on Monday (today) to get back on track? Maybe I should write something else not connected to A-Z? Another option is to write another H blog post.

I decided to stay in the groove of writing every day and another H post wouldn't hurt.

So today H is for History. Why history?

First of all I love history; always have as far back as I can remember. My favourite subject in school was history. Most of my classmates had no use for history and objected to having History as a mandatory course. I soaked up the history; in fact I usually finished reading my history textbook within the first two months of school. I borrowed history books from the library and consumed them. Now I'm busy putting together my family history.

There are stacks of notes, documents, and sketches of stories around me. I know that there are historical gems in these documents and stories just waiting to be discovered. Researching and recording this family history is fun, it's fascinating,and enlightening. It also reveals when and how significant historical events touch my own family history. For example; my mother told me how, in late 1938, her father had been transferred to Gleiwitz which was a small German village very close to the border with Poland. The whole family was moved to that village and shortly afterwards all the women and children were evacuated to another place because border tensions between Nazi Germany and Poland made that place too dangerous for them. My mother, who was 8 years old at the time, recalls her father telling her mother that is was all chicanery. After several months the families were brought back to Gleiwitz until war broke out.

What my mother didn't know was that Hitler staged a border incident at a radio tower in Gleiwitz to justify invading Poland. That was the outbreak of WWII. Until I gave this information to her my mother was completely unaware of how close she had been to a major historical event. It leads me to wonder how many times has history brushed up against me and I'm still not aware of it?

What will my children and future grandchildren discover that will closely link us to other major historical events? Will I be aware of how closely connected I have been to history?
Our access to news from around the world brings us in touch with events all around the globe - but we are usually safely distanced from those events and we fail to recognize how these things impact our own lives and the lives of people around us.

History is more than a collection of stories - it is what has shaped our world, our country, our communities, and our families. Writing my family history is something that I feel called to do. I want to pass on the information of who we are, and where we came from to my kids and the generations to come.

The research and writing continues.

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; 

it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance 

in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity. 

~~ CICERO, Pro Publio Sestio