While my mom had wanted to take
a DNA test for quite some time, it was only after she had been admitted to a
nursing home that I pulled up the 23&Me website, and ordered the kit for
her; debiting her account for a whopping $200.00.
A few weeks later the DNA test
kit arrived, I drove to the nursing home, opened the cap, and instructed my
mother to spit in the tube. Little did I know that I was facing a marathon task.
For you see, mama could barely ‘conjure up’ a few beads of saliva.
Of course, I encouraged her to
take her time and “give it her best shot.” As the minutes ticked by, I
naturally thought, “If she doesn’t manage to put an inch of spit in that vial,
she just gave the 23&Me company two Ben Franklin’s.”
However, after much
encouragement from yours truly, and an expenditure of twenty minutes, both my
mother and I were relieved to see an inch of translucent fluid in the bottom of
the tube. Capping it, and releasing the stabilizing agent, I shook it, slipped
it into the plastic bag, tucked it into the small cardboard box, and drove the
package to the nearest post office.
Five or six weeks later I
received the following email message:
“Erma, your 23&Me DNA analysis
is ready. Click on the attached weblink, enter your name and password, and your
results page will appear.”
Dear readers, I regret to tell
you that my mother passed away two weeks before I opened this email. She never
saw the report which detailed a myriad of her ancestral origins.
Hi
Erma,
Three
years ago, you completed 23andMe's health history survey, "Your Health
Profile".
One
of our goals at 23andMe is to understand how genes influence our changing
health over time. Please take the next step in this research and update your
health history.
As
a reminder, we may ask you to update your health history every year.
If
you have any questions about how to access your account or these surveys,
please contact Customer Care.
Thank
you for your continued participation in genetic research.
The
23andMe Research Team
|
When I saw the heading of the message, “Erma, Please
Update Your Health History” I mentioned it to my wife, and we both chimed in
together,
“I’m dead!”
Pt. 3
As a professor in a local
university I once spoke about the ‘melting pot’ which is America; the most
amazing compilation of peoples from an astounding number of countries from
throughout the world. After I looked over my mother’s DNA report, and my own, I
am convinced that she was, and I am our own individual melting pots; an
extraordinary blend of people groups from four of the seven continents.
While my mother went on to her
reward before she learned the results of her DNA test, and I have been prone to
notify the company that they needn’t bother her anymore with their updates, I
am glad that I am privy to their findings.
Speaking of those among our
ancestors, and relatives who have “gone on to glory,” I saw a blurb the other
day which really registered with me, and which speaks to the past and the
present, and the implications thereof.
“For all intents and purposes,
you are the only reason your ancestors ever lived.”
That is to say that those who
have gone on before us are long past living, and breathing, and moving, and
loving, and acting, and they are depending on us to impact our world in their
place.
There is a scene in the movie,
“Dances With Wolves” in which an old mule driver reminisces about his
relatives, and the possibility he could be killed by Indians, as he comes and
goes in the 19th century west. And
speaking of their fondest hope that he will return safely to them, he
says,
“I hope I don’t disappoint
them!”
Well, dear friends, I hope I
don’t disappoint those among my ancestors and relatives who have gone on before
me.
But I can tell you with all the
earnestness which is within me, I don’t intend to fail them while I still have
time to make a difference among those whom God has set in my pathway. For there
will come a time when, like my own dear mother, I will not be able to respond
to those who call out to me, nor impact one soul on this side of eternity, but
rather, I will have joined the ranks of those who have preceded the next
generation, and who depend on that generation to impact their world, and make a
difference in their name.
by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending
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