Intersecting interests
Zachary is hosting this month's IndieWeb blog carnival with a theme of Intersecting interests which is a fascinating topic.
So here's a story about my dad. And me. In three parts.
Part one. When my dad was in his twenties he read Malcolm X's autobiography, which was co-written with Alex Haley. Haley went on to write the book Roots. My dad suggested, in the telling, that these things were related, that Haley was researching his ancestry at the time. So my dad read Roots.
This got my dad interested in doing his own family history, back in the day when that meant trawling parish churches not Ancestry.com. All my childhood holidays were conveniently near a records office he wanted to go to. I have a mountain of family history records. I also have a good understanding of ecclesiastical architecture despite my parents being incredibly atheist. I went on to study history at university. Coincidence? I think not.
Before that, in the Seventies, to handle all these family history records, my dad got into computers. We had computers in the house on average earlier than most. Having started his career teaching chemistry, he ended up becoming an IT teacher. All of which is because my dad read an autobiography by Malcolm X.
Part two. Six years ago I watched a film. As a result of this film I now have a collection of 1907-ish postcards of Paris. The film does not occur in Paris or 1907. I got a telescope. The film is not even slightly about astronomy. We don't even see the night sky.
I wrote a story about a ghost, based on an amalgam of ancestors I only know about because of my dad's family history research. I wrote about astrophysicists. I wrote an X-Files AU because it was my dad's favourite show. I put his love of John Wyndham novels in it, his favourite songs, his funny anecdotes and sayings. I wrote and wrote and wrote and everyone got happy endings. I brought the ghost back to life. Because I knew what was coming.
Part three. What was coming, came. In the weeks before my dad died I sat with him until two in the morning waiting for the district nurse to come to administer morphine. The nurse explained what the half-life of a drug is. Yes, I said, he was a chemistry teacher. I walked home looking up, naming the constellations.