Family History

A flash of light. The roar of mighty Zeus. The stillness of spring shattered. Lightning bombards Mother Earth. Sparking tempests rush across the land. Rain cleanses remnants of the year past. Firm soil reborn. The bellowing wind stirs creation. Zeus's bolts return that which remains to ash.

Dawn cracks through the blackest storm cloud. Apollo has seen enough. Thus, he chases off his heavenly father. A glorious phoenix scatters the clouds in his wake.

I've heard these words as many times as I've passed around the sun. Every year during the first good thunderstorm, we would make a big deal of it. The family would split up throughout our two-story farmhouse to turn off anything electric. After we each confirmed our zone was shut down, we would gather on the front porch.

Dad would sit in his rocking chair gazing upon the beauty and destruction of the world around us and he'd recite the words. Sitting on the porch as dad spoke, we'd envision the gods hurling lightning bolts and sunshine. I knew Zeus was wielding the powers of the storm. I saw Apollo in his chariot racing across the sky. I could feel the flames of the phoenix as sunlight triumphed over darkness.

My father learned the story from his father. You can guess where he'd learned it. I prefer to believe it to be the retelling of some distant ancestor's experience as they bore witness to the wrath of the gods. Gods long since exhausted of the human experience. Therefore, showing their faces no longer.

It has become my duty to pass along the recitations. My two sons hang on to my every word as they imagine the deities of old clearing away the smoldering elements of the past. The words have outlived my father as they did his. As they will myself.

History is nothing but tales told by those who weren't there to remember it. Each year with the first notable electric whip over the neighborhood, my wife, my sons, and I flip all the switches through our apartment. We gather in front of the open window in our quaint living room and keep family history alive.

To my sons, my father is a legend. A superhero they never knew. No one made a movie about him, but they know the stories. Like that time, he lifted a car. Yes, there was a car jack involved. No, I didn't know that when it happened. My elder son can tell you about the time his great-grandfather wrestled a bear to save the farm. Through me, their stories are still here. I adore the wideness in their eyes as my children learn their history.

Now I realize my siblings and I were each the heirs to family tales. The storm looks much different when you're watching it with the springtime at your feet. For them, every day is still getting a little brighter and a little warmer.

I see them through autumnal eyes. Over these next years I will help them through their storms and into their summers. Before any of us realize it, it will be my winter solstice. My sons' children will be in their spring.

By then, my boys will be the fathers who have taken up the mantle as lore-keeper, passing on ancient wisdom and memorializing those who weathered their own storms and paved the way for them. My sons will be telling my story as the next storm washes me away.

Then, I will join the Olympians amongst the sky and within the tales.

See you in the Elysian Fields,

Tales From a Madman