I once told a
friend that I am fearless. Her father
was dying, and our conversation naturally turned to that of death and what lay
beyond. I told her I was fearless
because the spirits of my ancestor's are watching over me. They will protect and guide me. Because we are family and clan members, they
will be there to help me through anything.
The spirits of the past, of people who lived in a different country, in
a different time, people who I've never once seen, people who never looked upon
me, never knew me, when they were alive.
I know they are watching over me.
I could almost
see and feel them. From somewhere
bagpipes are playing. They are behind me
in military formations with swords and spears at the ready. They move around me, encircling me, making a
protective barrier. There they stay
waiting for my signal, waiting for someone to challenge them. It's a wonderful thought, and I can't say
that I don't still believe it in some way.
Even though, I know next to nothing about these people. My Scottish heritage and the clan Mackay seem
to be lost in the past. There is very
little to this side of my family left.
There are no traditions and no one who can tell me anything.
My father, an
uncle I've seen only a couple of times in my life, whose name I've long since
forgotten, and some relative in Scotland whom I've never met and heard very
little about, are the only ones who are still around. The only thing I've heard concerning my
relative in Scotland is that he has red hair and is very fat. My father wont talk about his brother, and
claims to know nothing about his family or ancestral history. When pushed my father will recount the story
of our family the same way. “I don't
know” he'll say”but the only stories I ever heard is that everyone in our
family were horse thieves, and either hanged or kicked out of every decent
country in the world until we ended up here.” I don't know if any of this is true or not, but I don't
believe it.
When I was a kid
I would have these really great Robin Hood fantasies about my family. You know they would spend there time stealing
from the rich and helping damsels in distress and things like that. There would be knights and sword fights with
my family taking up arms to defend the oppressed. Again, probably not true, but it makes for a
great time when your a kid. When I was
older and learned more about the country and its heroes the fantasies couldn't
help but stay in the back of my mind.
Today movies like Braveheart keep them alive, but still there is no
mention of the clan Mackay or any other who could be a relative of mine. The same is true about all the history books
I've ever read about Scotland, the clan Mackay is not even mentioned.
What literature I
have been able to get on the clan Mackay, through events like the Highland
Games and the like, does not say much.
Only that the clan history was full of warriors and wars. Great warriors so they say though they were
never able to win any war. One war in
particular, with Sutherland, lasted a hundred years finally ending when the
Mackays were forced to surrender. Anyway,
the clan was a poor one, living on land that could not sustain them. The clan chief broke up the clan centuries
before I was ever born. He took most of
the young men in the clan to go and fight as mercenaries in Sweden or
somewhere.
Closer to our
time, I learned that my grandfather, a drunk, came to America in the early 1900's. He came over as a cattle buyer for the
British government. He liked the country
and decided to stay. It was here in
America that he met my grandmother, ironically she had come over from Scotland
as well. She came to this country by
herself at age sixteen as an indentured servant. She had also managed to stay in school until
she graduated from high school, an unheard of thing for a woman back then. Unfortunately, that's all the story I
know. My grandmother died early on in my
father's life, and my grandfather died early on in mines.
Even though I
never met any of them its amazing that I can still feel a connection to
them. I do wonder about them. I wonder if they are proud of me, even if I'm
not a thief or haven't managed to get myself kicked out of the country
yet. Seriously, I mostly wonder how they
feel about being forgotten by their family.
Although I haven't forgotten about them myself, I don't think I ever
knew enough about them to forget them.
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