I have always wondered about my family history. I remember asking questions about family history with that 2nd grade family tree homework assignment we probably all got and I’m sure is probably still given out to 2nd graders today. I took that blank worksheet home, eager to fill it all in. It seemed like an easy enough assignment. Fill in the names of your relatives. Add pictures for bonus points.

I remember my parent’s reaction. My dad didn’t want to help me. I didn’t know how to read body language yet and nothing was going to stop my questions. I kept on asking and begging my mom to help me fill in the blanks. She finally agreed. That was the first time I learned some family histories don’t fit on a tree and aren’t meant to be talked about or shared.
So, my dad’s branch was pretty bare and my mom’s side, well, she helped me fill in the names on the paper, but she didn’t want to talk about family history. I turned in my sad Charlie Brown looking family tree hoping the teacher wouldn’t ask questions or put it up on the bulletin board. She didn’t. I think she read my body language.
Over the years I tried asking questions here and there and never really got answers. I almost gave up asking. Almost! Both my mom and dad kept their distance from family for different reasons and I learned to respect that as an adult, but as a kid, I just never really understood why. I remember friends would talk about going to their cousins houses and spending the summers with their grandparents. I wanted that and I knew that was just not going to happen. I came to accept our closed-family group as a way of life. I had a eight sisters and as the years passed by and we all had families of our own, we had a large immediate family group, still a closed family group.
Ironically, my husband was the unofficial genealogist of his family. He was the holder of all the family history from generations on both his parent’s side. Cousins were raised like siblings and family history was important to everyone. We couldn’t walk into a store in my husband’s home town without running into a relative. Sometimes they didn’t even know each others names, but they recognized the family resemblance. I loved hearing the exchange of them trying to figure whose family tree branch they were from. It is an amazing way of life, one that I longed for and one that I knew I wanted for my own kids. He helped me dabble a little in getting started with my family history gathering. This time, I got a little farther. I approached my mom and dad with more sensitivity and caution in my questions and had to be strategic about when, where and what I was asking about.
I still had that darn blank family tree outline that I had to tackle, but this time, the excitement I had was not so much in filling the actual blanks on the tree, but the real stories that lie between the branches. As I started to get more of the stories, it was clear that memory and perspective were shaped and biased by my mom and dad’s individuals experience. I had to use my good social work interviewing skills to really be present in the moment and not jump to the next question.
I shifted from information gathering to story-telling as a way to open up the conversation and I feel like it became therapeutic for us all. There were still clearly some areas that struck a nerve and this time, I knew not to push.
At some point along the way, I got busy with life and kids and finding the time to do family research and listening to stories went to the bottom of the priority list. I kept telling myself, I’ll make time one day.
Sometimes, time runs out. My dad died and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was dazed and confused for a while. He had been so much a part of our daily family life and I had to search for a new normal.
Over time, the new normal settled in and I’m finding my way through this grief journey in different ways. I decided I wanted to learn more about my dad as a student, as a soldier, as a brother, as a friend. If I couldn’t ask him, I would search for traces of him in records, documents, pictures and memories.
So, I set out on a new adventure and a new section on this blog called
“In search of Manuel Pacheco Jr.”