!"#$%#&'$()*)+#"# &$,(#(-#%$.)#-/# &')+)#"#0-%)#/+-%12# The Original Borutski/Borucki Homestead
history and all of that, whether or not I am truly conscious of it, is in me somewhere. It is in these very stories that I am relaying back to you. I am partly made up of all of this and more. But I do not know where I come from on my father’s side. The unfortunate part about estrangement from family is not really knowing the rest of your own story. I don’t like that a giant chunk of my story is missing; it’s unsettling and always leaves me wanting to learn about everyone else’s to fill this metaphorical void in me. I know a few bits of my roots on my dad’s side but they are disconnected, fragmented, and possibly false. The same can be said of what I know from my mom’s side of my family, because history is subjective to whatever it is referring to and people inherently embellish for effect, but I have more footing with them; I have access to those histories if I want them. When my parent’s split up a decade ago, the connection I had with my father’s family was severed forever. They do not speak to me; I do not speak to them. They live in the same town as my grandmother, the very place my parents were born, but I do not see them. I don’t think they would even recognize me now. Here is what I know from that side: I am Scottish. My grandfather is Scottish and his father married a native woman. So I am native as well. My step-grandfather is Irish. I am not Irish. This is what I know from my father’s side. When I tell people that I am native they look at me a little perplexed because I cannot answer the question about which tribe or group I have connections to. It seems ignorant, and to some degree it is, but it is just inaccessible for me to know that information. I have to guess. So far I
have come up with Algonquin or Métis. But I do not know, nor will I ever know. My grandfather left my grandmother when my dad was only a baby. He lives in Montreal (maybe). I have twin uncles (maybe). My story is not so cleanly written on this side of my family tree. I fill up the space with questions and musings and quips about being from a rich Highland clan in Scotland, almost believing it for the sake of having at least something to grasp hold of. I can list all of the ways I am connected to the great events and people of Europe, even claiming that my family was part of the first something or other to ever come to this country, but does this validate my existence? Am I, as a person, not taken as seriously because I only know half of my own story, my own history? I suppose that is not true in the least. It infuriates me that my punishment for circumstances I had no control over leave me with questions about who I am and where I come from, what I am connected to, but being mystified is quite liberating. Lineage seems to be less important these days than what it was fifty years ago. Even fifty years ago, it was not as strictly monitored as it was fifty or so years before that. Where my family has come from is significant to me as a person but it is no longer cause for a validation of self. My roots are all jumbled up and I am sure I am not the only one. I used to fret about it when people would talk about family reunions because they seemed more solidly whole than I was. This is no longer the case, because I am rooted, grounded and whole all on my own.
9