My mother's parents

The other weekend I was riding in the car with my mother, and with MennoLit fresh on my mind, I began to ask some questions about the history in our family. Mom told me about our food of course, but then went into stories of language. She remembered how her grandpa would swing her around, laughing and saying "Zoom, zoom!" in a heavy German accent, and how she and her sisters would wake up and fall asleep to their own parents conversing in German too. I asked if she had ever learned the language, and she stated that she didn't. She then proceeded to tell me me that she feels as if German is such a part of her that she understand it anyway, although she's never had a lesson in her life.

This may sound ridiculous, but -- maybe it's just because I'm her daughter -- I think I understand what she was getting at. There is a part of her that she "inherited" from her family, and even if that part never quite blossomed, it will always be there. I'm beginning to think religion, or at least the cultural aspect of religion, works that way too.

In class, we talked about how our identity, whether chosen or not, can shape us. At first I struggled with applying this concept to Mennonite identity, as I've always seen religion as a choice. To an extent I still believe this, but the more I think about it and hear other's stories, the more inheriting a Mennonite identity in particular seems to make sense. In the same way Julia Kasdorf felt her Mennonite identity in her poem "Green Market, New York" when meeting an Amish woman from her area, my mom feels her Mennonite heritage in a German accent.

I realize that this isn't the case for everyone, and that everyone has a different family history and different family stories. But beginning to understand how much my family's Mennonite legacy is affecting me is starting to make me wonder about all of the other aspects of my life that I thought were total independent choices, but have much to do with my family or my upbringing. For example, I thought that I was making an independent choice to deviate from chocolate and vanilla and choose a lemon cake for my birthday, until my aunt informed me that I was just like grandpa and uncles, who find pleasure in eating lemons plain.
I enjoyed it anyway.