I grew-up in a family that treasured our Italian heritage. All the more so because I don’t look the slightest bit Italian in spite of being able to trace both parents’ families to Northern Italy. Then there’s the part about how our last-name was changed as the result of a clerical error when Grandfather immigrated at age 12 and enrolled in Grade School to learn English. I’ve enjoyed telling my family story, which usually leads to:

[Hearer] You’re Italian???

[Me] 100% – unless there’s a milkman in there no-one is talking about!

When we discovered I am infertile, I felt sad, frustrated, even angry. Immediately I realized I wouldn’t be able to share my Italian heritage with any children we might have. As my wife and I built our family via donor conception, I worried that continuing to tell my treasured family history would only create tension with the fact that my children don’t share my genes. I mourned having to give up this familiar narrative. Then I mostly forgot about it in the day-to-day rush hat surrounded the arrival of our three daughters.

As they grew older, I began to see another path. I saw that I could focus on the family stories themselves, and how elements of these stories shaped my character and molded my aspirations. A family passes down not only genes, but the culture, lessons, belonging, a shared journey in stories that shape our personalities. Because of the influence of my ancestors, my parents are the people they are, and I am the person I am.

And my children DO share that.

They experience the influence of my ancestors’ stories every day in how I live. My wife and I CAN share our selection of what’s important to us – from both of our family histories. My children will be the people they become, in part because of the influence of my ancestors’ stories on me and on them.

That’s when I realized that my children are full inheritors of my family history, after all.

Copyright 2014 by Vince Londini. All rights reserved. Used with permission.