{"id":707,"date":"2018-04-09T04:21:28","date_gmt":"2018-04-09T04:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/?p=707"},"modified":"2018-04-11T06:55:30","modified_gmt":"2018-04-11T06:55:30","slug":"my-family-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/09\/my-family-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"My family tree…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was my senior year of high school when I saw people in the trees outside my house, an event I’ve never talked about since.<\/p>\n

“I see people standing in the trees.”\u00a0 I told my boyfriend, burying my face in his shoulder.<\/p>\n

“What are you talking about?”\u00a0 He asked.<\/p>\n

People, too numerous to differentiate, stood at the level of the tall cottonwoods that lined the ditch and no matter how often I averted my eyes, when I looked up they were still there.<\/p>\n

I’ve never spoken of this event because at the time I felt certain I was crazy.<\/p>\n

Adding to this feeling of insanity was the fact that I felt a strong impression that Benjamin Franklin was among those in the trees.\u00a0 Benjamin Franklin?\u00a0 Why would he be there?\u00a0 Yet the name came so clearly to my mind that I couldn’t deny it.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until years, maybe decades later that it dawned on me.\u00a0 While it seemed quite unlikely that Benjamin Franklin the founding father was watching over me that night, finding a guardian angel in Benjamin Franklin Johnson my three times great grandfather made me feel that perhaps I wasn’t so crazy after all.\u00a0 Perhaps there really had been people standing in the trees.<\/p>\n

“We have no idea what family really means.”\u00a0 My friend’s husband told her after his near death experience.\u00a0 “Family is everything.”<\/p>\n

And I believe him.<\/p>\n

So when I received a message from an old friend recently, telling me that his parents wanted to gift me with an original painting they had received from my father, I felt a thrill of excitement.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I want my dad’s energy–pieces of who he was–in my home.\u00a0 I want my kids to think of and know a little something about the grandpa they never met.\u00a0 I want them to feel the strength of family.<\/p>\n

It’s for this reason that I–after all these years–decided to share the story of the people in the cottonwood trees.<\/p>\n

I want my children to know that those same guardian angels that came forth at a very critical time in my youth are watching over them now.\u00a0 I want them to know that among those guardian angels are their grandpas, cheering from the front row.\u00a0 And I want to ask them, should they ever see people in the trees, to keep their eyes wide open and to wave hello for me.<\/p>\n

Because they’ll be seeing their family.<\/p>\n

And family is everything.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was my senior year of high school when I saw people in the trees outside my house, an event I’ve never talked about since. “I see people standing in the trees.”\u00a0 I told my boyfriend, burying my face in his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”\u00a0 He asked. People, too numerous to differentiate, stood … Continue reading “My family tree…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":719,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions\/719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordsforthisday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}