Miraculous Grains of Sand

Canada’s birthday is coming up and, coincidentally, I’ve been digging into my Canadian ancestors again. I’ve been exploring the French Canadian branch of the family tree, who arrived in the mid-1600s. That line also includes French-Métis ancestors (as opposed to the Scottish-Métis ancestors I’d already discovered). Growing up, I was told our ancestors were English, Welsh, and Scottish, so discovering that we also have Irish, French, and Métis ancestors has been a fun journey.

I don’t consider myself to be Scottish, Welsh, English, Irish, French, or Métis, just because I have ancestors from those cultures. I identify as plain old Canadian, but we carry the stories of our ancestors in our DNA, and knowing those stories makes me feel more connected to Canada and its history. My ancestors were among the First Nations peoples who were on this land for thousands of years before the Europeans arrived, and also among the Scottish fur traders who worked for the Hudson Bay Company in what was then Rupert’s Land, and among the French Voyageurs who worked for the North West Company. They were also among the Red River Métis, who formed their own distinct culture and identity, and also among those who later hid that identity because of how “half-breeds” were perceived and treated. They were part of the wave of British immigrants who came to Canada in the 1800s and early 1900s, looking for a better life, or lured by the promise of free land.

When I read that history, I think about how much of it had to happen exactly as it did for me to be here today. When Nick was young, we were having a conversation where I said, “If that had happened, dad and I would never have met,” and he said, “And I’d have had different parents.” I had to explain that HE wouldn’t have existed at all.

I read an article recently that said the chance of you being born is one in a hundred trillion. The author had calculated the odds based on the number of different combinations of your parent’s sperm and eggs that could have existed.

If you took a very long ruler that stretched from here to the planet Pluto, one inch of that distance would be you. The rest of the distance would be other possible human beings that could have been, but never were. Each of us has won a lottery with a hundred thousand billion different players.

Alan Lightman

But even that vastly understates the odds of you being born. That’s just the odds that your particular set of parents made the particular DNA cocktail that produced you. If you think of all the things that had to happen throughout history, and the odds of each of your ancestors being born, your existence on this earth becomes almost a statistical impossibility. The odds are mind-bogglingly, astronomically minuscule.

And, yet, here we all are, acting like being alive is the most normal thing in the world!

Tracing my ancestry also helps with existential angst. As important and indispensable as my life feels to me (and I’m really quite attached to it), in the context of time and space, it’s just one thread in a much larger tapestry.

So, I generally come out of these genealogy deep dives thinking: “You, Carolyn Chodura, are an impossible miracle! But don’t get a big head about it. You’re also a tiny insignificant speck of sand.”

Aside from grappling with my existence, I’ve been hanging out with other miraculous grains of sand, including Ray’s nephew, Curtis, who came to Brighton for a visit. We did a circuit in Prince Edward County, starting at the Oeno Gallery and outdoor sculpture garden, then on to Picton for coffee, wandered around Base 31, drove to Bloomfield for Slickers ice cream, then lunch and wine tasting at Sandbanks Winery, before ending off the day by picking up a jerk chicken dinner at JERKebago in Trenton.

This past weekend, we got together with Ray’s mom, along with Ray’s step-nephew and his family, to celebrate her 97th birthday. We’re a week early because we have our annual cottage weekend with Ottawa friends coming up. She’s looking pretty great, isn’t she?

On our way back to Brighton, we stopped at Karen and Tom’s for dinner, and watched Canada knock out South Africa to move on to the next round in the World Cup.