Passing it on

This column is about genetics. Written by a person who stopped taking sciences in Grade 10 (courtesy of the high school system in the province of Quebec which, in pre-historic times, streamed kids into arts and sciences). But also one who has heard about the seriousness of genetics from a very smart daughter doing research in targeted gene therapies for pediatric cancers.

That’s the big leagues in genetics.

The minor leagues, where I do most of my thinking and write about here, is considering the idea of things being written in your blood that are less obvious.

Hear me out.

How many of you had older relatives, or parents, who spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out “where that came from?”

Slow to move in the morning?

Just like your grandfather.

Sew really well?

Didn’t get that from me, got that from my mother, who died before she was born.

Don’t understand why you get lost so easily.

The Mowats all have a good sense of direction.

My mother-in-law spends a lot of time on this even now. Someone have a drinker in their family?

Now, what side did that come from? Let me think.

I think conventional wisdom (if you were lucky enough to inherit it) is on to something.

I thought of this when my lovely nephew Nick and I walked out of the research library at Pier 21, the famous port in Halifax where so so many immigrants landed, when they came from Europe for new lives in Canada. We had been in to research an ambitious side of the family, who claimed they had lived affluent lives in Edinburgh, even had passed on the address of a fancy house to prove it. We tracked down that household in the 1901, 1841, and 1791 censes, where the bunch of them were listed as “servants,” myths of course also passed on. Leaving that library, I thought of those names we had just read and wondered what other parts of them remained hidden in me, or in Nick?

Genetic traits can be obvious, family predispositions to certain medical conditions, for example. However those are not the traits that interest me today.

You see, I have my own theory about genetics. And in the future, you will remember you read it about it first here.

I think that not only the big things are passed on, but some little ones too. What if there is a gene for favorite color? Or for not liking tomato sandwiches? Or thinking dogs are more interesting than people? Or loving rhubarb and hating beets?

Tell me why not.

If this is possible, I think the next thing to consider are the two attributes that make life easier.

These things, in my view, are not brains, or intuition, or the ability to make money.

No, I have decided that the two things most useful in life are a sense of humor and common sense.

Think about it.

How many better politicians would be elected, and more reasonable governments formed, if more of the electorate had common sense?

How many happier families or marriages would there be, if those in them had the ability to laugh, at themselves most of all?

Think of those tiny genes. And what happens when they are missing, or present.

My father, for instance, had the funny gene. There were stories that when he walked home from elementary school, the ladies in the neighborhood would wait at their gates because when he passed by, he had something entertaining to say. My mother was pressured to ask this tall, red-headed, gangly guy to a party, because her friends said they couldn’t have any fun without him. My childhood, growing up, was like being in the audience of a comedy show. I even remember my dad on his death bed when a particularly histrionic visitor arrived, that even when he didn’t have the energy to speak, what when he heard her voice, he turned to me, rolled his eyes, and winked.

My Dad’s genes have been passed on. I like to think I have it, and one of my sisters sure does. We will both do nearly anything for a laugh, and can’t resist that one last line when we exit a room. One of my grandchildren has it too. At five I can see it in her eyes, like I saw it in my dad’s. She’s got the wit, but most of all, the timing.

And you can’t teach anyone that.

Even though sometimes you wish you could.

Which brings us to common sense.

There’s absolutely no substitute for it and it does not seem to me to be something that cannot be added after the fact, post birth. And the signs of its presence are there early.

I have an example. A good one.

Let me tell you a story about a 150 pound Golden Retriever.

My daughter’s dog.

Here we go.

I was babysitting the three kids one afternoon and Reggie, the dog, was asleep at the top of the stairs. Deep in a dream, I could see him slowly start to roll over. I knew in an instant that lovely dog was going to fall down the stairs. I rushed over and decided I would save him. (This story probably illustrates that the common sense gene may not be present in me).

Now, let me tell you big, sleeping, rolling dogs are not all that easy to catch. Reggie did fall, but woke up in my arms and startled, flayed around. In that process he accidentally cutting open my arm with his nail. There was blood everywhere.

The youngest grandhold ran screaming to his room.

The oldest grabbed a phone and called my husband to come quick.

The middle child, not missing a beat, said. “Babs hold your arm up high. I’m going to get a tea towel and you have to press it down hard on your cut.” On her way to the kitchen she called out to her sister who was hyperventilating into the phone, “Tell Poppa Leo when he comes into the house to bring in his first aid kit.”

She was only eight then. Cool and calm.

So I wonder.

Where do these things come from? The deep-in-your-bones attributes? Are these life lines thrown to us from the past if we are lucky enough to catch them?

How much of the mosaics of ourselves are really gifts, and do each of us include many things paid forward.

What do you think?

This theory could benefit from verification.

What has been passed on to you?