Forest Gump’s mom had it right: Life really is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get.

That sentiment applies not just to the vagaries of life, but to our heritage – our genetic makeup, and our life’s experiences.  It is genetics that creates the chocolate selection – sometimes bittersweet, sometimes even a bit nutty.  It is that conditioning (training from our elders in the home and society) that later in life often needs to be reconditioned or just lost altogether, through either hours and hours of psychotherapy or meditation (whatever works).  It may also, however, be that same conditioning will keep you going and will not let you give up; it will make you feel that there is another way or…not.  My ancestors – those little voices that sit on our shoulders – always tell me there is another way.  I just have to look a little harder and so, sometimes, must you.  Look outside that box of chocolates; look everywhere; try everything.  Something will work!  Maybe not the way you expected at first, but surely wonderful surprises will be there along the way.

When we are youngsters, we try hard to avoid family comparisons.  We don’t want to chew funny like Grandpa, or walk weird like Grandma.  We certainly don’t want to tell stupid jokes like Dad or wear old-fashioned makeup like Mom.  After all, we are unique, special, and our own person.  We make every effort humanly possible to separate ourselves from those who contributed to our genetic and psychological makeup, choosing to believe that we sprouted from some superhuman DNA dropped to Earth by alien powers.

Then one morning we wake up and look in the mirror, and see Mom’s eyes or Dad’s large nose staring back at us.  The same bushy eyebrows or full lips.  The same expression of perpetual joy or misery.  We discover we can sing like Aunt Clara or play the piano like Cousin Effie.  “Oh, no!”  We decide that it must be a coincidence.

But along with that realization, can, or at least should, come the wonderful news that our heritage is something amazing, full of surprises, talents, history, and remarkable feats of survival.  I can tell you this is true from my own “box of chocolates” family that was filled with surprises when I eventually took the time to look for them.

I found that our great-grandfather invented a washing machine for my grandmother before it became an everyday luxury. I learned our great-grandmother moved out of the house on her own at the age of 16, after which she became an accountant and much later was able to enjoy that washing machine. We learned that another grandmother had eight inventions for some kind of space project, despite the fact that we never saw her with a book, and shame on me, I was thinking that she was not the sharpest tool in the shed.  All of it is true about my family and is very true about my surprise and shock.  I wish you could have seen my son’s face when he realized that his grandmother was the one involved in the space project.

What secrets does your family history hold?  Friends have shared amazing stories with me; stories of inventions given away out of generosity and selflessness, and relatives arriving at Ellis Island with pennies in their pockets and a dream in their heart.  What are your family stories? I encourage you to investigate.  Check to see what is hiding in your family tree!

It has taken me a long time to realize who I am because of my heritage, and the same surely is true for you.  It is not only genetic heritage, but the shared history of family talents, choices, opinions, and character.  Perhaps it doesn’t happen exactly this way for everyone, but the important role my art heritage and family strength would play in my life took me by surprise.  In fact, it was quite an amazing turn of events.  And if you come from a different childhood, (perhaps you were adopted) or you do not know much of your family history, then create it from your own life.  Every day of your life had something special about it, especially if despite all you went through, you happened to have love and give hugs.

Mikhail Biryukov, my awesome step father (1926-1995)

The Black Sea, tempera, 197…