DNA: The Truth Will Out

(Part Six) But you have to commit to it.

PART SIX: DNA: THE TRUTH WILL OUT

This is part six of a story about unexpected surprises when the DNA kit went on sale Cyber Monday. Want to catch up?

• Part One: COMING OUT OF THE DESERT

• Part Two: DNA (DO NOT ASSUME)

• Part Three: DNA HACKER

• Part Four: DNA: (DO NOT ADMIT)

• Part Five: DNA VICISSITUDES

THE TRUTH WILL OUT

Why is it that every single time I find myself bawling my eyes out at Mass, I also find myself without one tissue in my purse? Our ancestors understood this. We need to bring back the art of the handkerchief tucked in the cuff under the sleeve and in the gentlemen’s coat pockets. I kneeled and prayed. Actually I kneeled and cried. A lot. But that also is prayer. Mercifully the migraine was gone. I sense I’ve already been delivered of… something… but I’m too exhausted to try to figure out what. Right now, it’s enough to know you’ve been delivered. Don’t argue over it. The truth has set you free. Even if your brain hasn’t caught up with the fact. It will. But for now I kneel and weep.

Over time I will begin to collect the tears. They are alive. They talk. Oh, they talk! They tell the truth. “Why did I weep you?” I ask, and the little tear tells me her story. One story for every tear. Some have beautiful, glorious, treasure-filled endings. Some continue to weep their sorrowful mysteries. This must be why God collects them in a little bottle. For his book. So He can talk to me about those tears. To show me He saw it too and He won’t forget. But I’ll have to return to them later.

You keep track of all my sorrows, You collect all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8

I do have a tendency to look before I leap. Well, I did when I was younger. Now I am aware. That doesn’t mean I don’t still leap emphatically (after a gut check) but I like to think of it as having the talent to commit. It has served me well as an actress. Well, yes, and as a human. It’s just that the very moment, that impulse that comes right before the leap is what has needed long term, shall we say…consideration.

Mass has ended. We are told “Go in peace.” I feel at peace. I go in peace. Will I stay at peace? Undecided.

But I have a new understanding.

This… thing. This .. ha! …“life update”  - this new lead cannot be buried. I focus carefully on breathing. That seems to be the one thing that makes immediate sense. I think about the dotted line that has always been on my family tree. The one that goes from my mother to me because the straight line has been reserved - from me to my grandmother. I think of the re-arrangements of those lines happening now like baby neural pathways birthing themselves, carving their way through my brain.