Cousins Humour - Gurulé Family 2024

           A full-time detective

           A thorough historian

           An inveterate snoop

           A confirmed diplomat

           A keen observer

           A hardened skeptic

           An apt biographer

           A qualified linguist

           A part-time lawyer

           A studious sociologist

           An accurate reporter

           An hieroglyphics expert,

           AND . . .

           A complete nut!

Lord, help me dig into the past, and sift the sands of time,

That I might find the roots that made this family tree mine.

Lord, help me trace the ancient roads, on which my fathers trod,

And led them through so many lands, to find our present sod.

Lord, help me find an ancient book, or dusty manuscript,

That's safely hidden now away, in some forgotten crypt,

Lord, let it bridge the gap that haunts my soul, when I can't find

The missing link between some name that ends the same as mine.

I think that I shall never see, the finish of a family tree,

As it forever seems to grow, from roots that started long ago.

Way back in ancient history times, in foreign lands and distant climes,

From them grew trunk and branching limb, that dated back to times so dim,

One seldom knows exactly when, the parents met and married then;

Nor when the twigs began to grow, with odd named children row on row.

Though verse like this was made by me, the end's in sight as you can see.

'Tis not the same with family trees, that grow and grow through centuries.

Your tombstone stands among the rest, neglected and alone.

The name and date are chiseled out on polished, marbled stone.

It reaches out to all who care, it is too late to mourn.

You did not know that I exist, you died and I was born.

Yet each of us are cells of you in flesh, in blood, in bone.

Our blood contracts and beats a pulse entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled one hundred years ago

Spreads out among the ones you left, who would have loved you so.

I wonder if you lived and loved, I wonder if you knew

That someday I would find this spot, and come to visit you.

Many, many years ago when I was twenty three,

I got married to a widow, pretty as could be.

This widow had a grown-up daughter, with flowing hair of red.

My father fell in love with her, and soon the two were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law and changed my very life.

Now my daughter was my mother, for she was my father's wife.

To complicate the matters worse, although it brought me joy.

I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became a brother-in-law to dad.

And so became my uncle, though it made me very sad.

For if he was my uncle, then that also made him brother

To the widow's grown-up-daughter who, of course, was my step-mother.

Father's wife then had a son, who kept them on the run.

And he became my grandson, for he was my daughter's son,

My wife is now my mother's mother and it makes me blue.

Because, although she is my wife, she's my grandma too.

If my wife is my grandmother, then I am her grandchild.

And every time I think of it, it simply drives me wild.

For now I have become the strangest case you ever saw.

As the husband of my grandmother, I am my own grandpa!

I started out calmly, tracing my tree, to find if I could find the makings of me.

And all that I had was Great-grandfather's name, not knowing his wife or from where he came.

I chased him across a long line of states, and came up with pages and pages of dates.

When all put together, it made me forlorn, proved poor Great-grandpa had never been born.

One day I was sure the truth I had found, determined to turn this whole thing upside down.

I looked up the record of one Uncle John, but then I found the old man to be younger than his son.

Then when my hopes were fast growing dim, I came across records that must have been him.

The facts I collected made me quite sad, dear old Great grandfather was never a Dad.

I think someone is pulling my leg, I am not at all sure I wasn't hatched from an egg.

After hundreds of dollars I've spent on my tree, I can't help but wonder if I'm really me.