Nervous and excited, I entered the virtual circle poet, singer/songwriter and teacher, Meredith Heller, created for our first online gathering of Kindred – Women’s Poetry Workshop. I first encountered Meredith through my friend Brian Pearson and his Mystic Cave Podcast.

Enchanted by her voice, words and presence, I searched for a course I could join and was drawn to Kindred with its enticing invitation to “Join us this holiday season as we write ourselves into deeper & vital belonging with the great family of life.”

The timing couldn’t have been more fortuitous. Still feeling the aftereffects of the results of the US election two days prior, still trying to find my sense of place and balance in the great wheel of life, joining the Kindred called me in like a welcoming fire inviting me into the womb of my creative nature.

I wasn’t disappointed, but I was surprised.

In Meredith’s opening visualization, she invited each of us to listen for and allow an ancestor to come forward. That’s when my Grandmother Rachel, my father’s mother, appeared.

I know little about her. My father never spoke of her, having been estranged from her since he was 8 when his parents divorced. All I really knew about Grandmother Rachel was what my mother told me, which boiled down to, “She was mean to me.” But in the visualization, Rachel radiated a quiet joy, unlike my mother, whose smile always seemed etched with a hint of sorrow.

As I stood before her, I felt confused and curious. I had never really tried to get to know this woman who was a part of me, whose DNA was intertwined with mine. Her joy, a stark contrast to the sadness I often associate with my family history, made me wonder what other hidden strengths and emotions I carry within me, inherited from generations past.

When my mother died almost five years ago, I became the keeper of her “Box of Secrets”, a large tin Lebkuchen box that had travelled from Germany back to Canada with my parents many years before. Amongst photos and various papers, it held letters from my father to my mother during WW2, their marriage certificate from Pondicherry, India in 1942 and, letters my grandmother wrote to her daughter, Phyllis, a woman I’d never met and had not known even existed until I was in my 30s.

My father kept secrets well. My Grandmother Rachel was part of the mystery that enshrouded the secrets of his life.

Looking at my Grandmother Rachel yesterday, I felt a profound sense of the unknown. What stories did she hold within her? What trials had she faced? What joys had she celebrated? And what part of her story lives on in me, waiting to be discovered?

Perhaps we all carry within us these unseen threads, these echoes of lives lived long ago, shaping who we are in ways we may never fully understand.

As I embark on this journey of uncovering my father’s hidden history, I am filled with a sense of both trepidation and excitement, knowing that with each revelation, I come closer to understanding the complex tapestry of my own being.

Thank you Meredith for welcoming me so warmly into “this great family of life.”

What about you? Does your family history hold secrets you’ve yet to unfold?