findingphilblog

My DNA test results are in (cue the Maury Povich music).

Actually, they came back a few weeks ago. The fact I’m posting now should tell you they were fairly unremarkable.

I knew my background regions all along. So, no surprises there. But what did shock me was how little of my DNA seems to come from Italy.

My profile states that I am 51 percent Western European, 24 percent Eastern European, 11 percent Great Britain and only 8 percent Italian. Whaaaat??? My grandpa was 100 percent Italian, as in, both his parents came from Italy and I’ve traced their roots very far back.

My grandmother was 100 percent Slovak. My other grandparents were 100 percent Polish and 98 percent Irish, with a little French Canadian thrown in because the Irish branch emigrated through Canada rather than the US.

I was expecting more Italian. But, ah, perhaps ol’ Fillipo Aristodemo had some other types of blood running through his veins!

I suppose it depended on what was in my spit that morning I took the test. Maybe the Italian portions were still sleeping.

I do take a lot of comfort in knowing that the majority of “me” is made up of the DNA most closely associated with my wonderful Grammy and my equally gentle, loving and kind Grandpa Krajenke (the Polish portion, if you couldn’t tell.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about how comforting this notion of inheritance is, at least for me and in my circumstance.

My mother-in-law, you see, is not doing well. She’s in the end stages of a progressive and ultimately fatal disease. My daughter, despite visiting her every week along with her Daddy, will only know her in pictures. However, there is a portion of her that will always be with her, that will always be with Jason, too.

My mother and father will be with me and with my daughter long after they are gone. A part of me will be with my daughter until the end of her days.

So, that means Grammy, and yes, Phil, are with me right now.

In physics, you learn that matter is neither created nor destroyed. With this test, it shows that is indeed the case. Lives echo on and on, catching the shore of the present day like the tide.