The Big Secret

Hi - It's Edith!

I have a birthday this week, and for the first time since I turned one and twenty, I don't mind.  It occurs to me that if you can add a year to your span in this uncertain world, you're being rude and ungrateful to regret it.  I don't care what all the "humorous" birthday cards say.  I'm getting older and I like it.

But speaking of years, something just happened to dilute my joy.  This past week, someone in the Family unearthed a Deep Dark Secret that had been sitting there for over seventy-five years. 

A Big Bad One.*

Those who lived through it, knew about it. Most of them are gone now. 

Learning it, even after all these years, absolutely floored me.

Although I was horrified, I wasn't surprised.

All children know their family has a secret.  Why else would wandering into a room with adults in it often cause sudden silences, and "shhh, the child," significant looks? 

And many children also know that they were stolen from a royal family and are being raised among peasants.  Children have monstrous egos.  Every secret has to be about them, even if the adults were only telling a dirty joke.

This time, the joke's on me. 
I always knew there was a big, bad Secret, and damned if there wasn't!
I can't divulge it yet because of some other family members.

My Susie says that in the future such secrets won't exist because of the Internet.

Words that used to be writ on water are now writ on the ethers, and yet there, they are able to be discovered.  All is recorded.  All is searchable.

The Internet knows all things and keeps them out in the open.

This secret lay in hiding since early in the last century.  And were it not for the Internet, it would've stayed buried.

It really doesn't matter anymore.  Except to me.  It explains a lot, and makes me me feel both betrayed and yet protected.  It also bolstered my feelings of paranoia.  I wonder if there's another Secret out there. 

I've had some real screamers of nightmares lately.

Then I remembered what I once read about people who collect antiques, as I do.  A researcher said antique lovers are always searching for something they think they lost in their childhood. That would also make most archaeologists and historians -- from Indy Jones to your friendly neighborhood professor of History -- people who know that there is a Big Secret. 

Yet all my research through the years has shown me that no one can really know History.  History is a thousand stories that have been allowed to be passed down.  The truth is often lost or purposely hidden in the retelling.

And then I got to thinking about why I love to read and write Historical Romances.  Ithink those of us who do, do so because we too are looking for secrets, only we want to find a Happy Ending every time.

So maybe if my family hadn't so closely guarded that Secret, I wouldn't have read what I did, and written as I do. 

What do you think?

** Oh, and promotional me just remembered that my newest book: HIS DARK AND DANGEROUS WAYS is coming out on May 27th. 

It's a good one!  Some nice reviews here on Romantic Times, here on Genre Go Round, here on Coffee Time Romance, here on Romance Junkies and here on Fresh Fiction!  Wow!

Uh oh.  I just realized that it's also about love amidst secrets and distrust. 
Oh my. :)

*Re: The Secret, in case you are wondering of the nature of it, my daughter forces me to divulge that no one was injured -- no murder, no rippers, no rapists involved.

...uhmm. That is to say, none we know of yet.....

Comments

[kay]

Happy Birthday Edith!

Family secrets. I think I unearthed one while doing my family genealogy. I can't find a marriage record or divorce record for my great-grandfather's parents. And his last name is different than his mothers. So, it leads me to think he was illegitimate. And that leads me to wonder what kind of woman his mother was and gee I wish I could see a photo of her and why didn't I ask my grandmother about him when she was alive and why can't I find any hidden family journals. It's all very interesting and mysterious. All families have secrets, and what's bad about a secret is sometimes you never know the truth.

[Kathleen MacIver]

Quote: I have a birthday this week, and for the first time since I turned one and twenty, I don't mind. It occurs to me that if you can add a year to your span in this uncertain world, you're being rude and ungrateful to regret it.
________________________________

Yea!!! Someone else saying this! I lost my mother three years ago, five days shy of her 53rd birthday, and that is one lesson I learned through losing her. See... my mother was a miracle child, surviving 51 years longer than she was supposed to. Because of that, she used every birthday as a celebration of one more year of life she'd been given. And the parties she threw herself just got bigger every year. How many women get up on stage in front of 1000+ people at church to tell them that they're turning 50, and happy about it? My mother did!

But she didn't make her 53rd birthday. Instead, we held her memorial service on her birthday.

I will never hide my age or dread a birthday. Because no matter what, it IS one more year I've been given, and much, MUCH better than the alternative.

So happy birthday to you!!!!!

[liz]

I thought it was just going to be your actual birth date. That's how my mind works. As the Family Historian I've unearthed a lot of Big Secrets. Some are sealed until the people are gone, some didn't seem so bad after the speaking and permission was granted to expose them, and some I feel don't need to ever be told and will die with the people affected. (Unreported rape). You can't ever know those that went before you, even the ones you did know. life is too ephemeral. But sometimes a Big Secret is a giant flashlight that makes so many other things make sense.

My Aunt had an uncle and a grandparent commit suicide. Her family acted in a lot of ways she didn't understand when she was growing up and she put it down to her father's early death. When she asked me to review some of her family files, I thought it would be fun. What wasn't fun was telling her most of her family lines ended in Dachau, something she never knew. She asked me to stop, and I did. A year later she told me that now she was glad she knew, it helped her understand & appreciate many things. A lot of my Big Secrets are funny or happy, that one was just hard, but I'm glad it came out.

Which brings me to a sealed Secret - I've told every elderly lesbian in my family that if they would all just give me the green light they would be SHOCKED how many of them there are. I said we should have a Family Dyke Night and they could all feel less alone.

[NinaP]

Happy Birthday, Edith!

It was just yesterday that I decided I'm not too old to love birthdays. That's what a near miss with an eighteen-wheeler will do for ya. PTL I just lost a tire. Another few inches and it would have been my life.

Anyway, speaking of secrets, antiques and history... I was at an auction the other day and found Tupper's Complete Poetical Works, dated 1853. It was signed "to Elli Bowman from J.J." Deep inside the pages was a lock of long brown hair and a black mourning band. One can only wonder at the story.

Nina, back to her ms

[cheryl c.]

Happy birthday! I 'm sorry to hear about the family secret. We all have something in our families. Since there is nothing we can do to change the past, it's best to not let it bother you too much. What counts is that you are enjoying your life. Congrats on the new book coming out. I look forward to reading it!

[Patricia Rice]

What a cool post! And now we have to keep coming back to see if the Secret is Revealed. "G" The key to plotting...

Susie is probably right to the extent that people are curious enough to go looking for family nuggets. It was no secret in our house that my mother and her twin brother were orphans put up for foster care by live parents. It was a pretty big secret in the family from which they came though. We still don't have verification of whatever went on back then and speculation remains rife. Divorce, death, mysterious strangers... Annoys heck out of me.

I'm intrigued with the idea that antique lovers are hunting for answers. I'd say historians are too.

Thanks for the great post and many joyous returns on the anniversary of your birth!

[Maggie Robinson]

Happy birthday! In our family, there are layers of secrets, but nobody is much good at keeping all of them. I can get most anything out of my daughters with a little ingenuity.*g* But I have a mystery that will never be resolved since my parents have died. I've decided it doesn't really matter, because otherwise I'd go crazy, LOL. I'm much more interested in the future than the past, although I collect antiques, too.

[talpianna]

Happy Birthday, Edith!

These family secrets can often provide motives for murder--at least in fiction. I remember one book* in which a genealogist was murdered because she turned up the fact that one of her client's ancestors was the product of a polygamous Mormon marriage. Seems said client was a big wheel in the D.A.R.; and their rules are written to preclude the membership of Mormons, even if they are direct descendents of George Washington.

Now that's MY idea of a nasty little secret!

*GENEALOGY OF MURDER (1996)by Lee Martin

[Jane George]

Are antique lovers searching for something they lost in their childhood? Or a past life?

(That's where I put those opera glasses!)

Things that make you go, hmmm...

[buggalugs]

Happy Birthday Edith,
I am so happy to have a birthday...yes I'm a year older(58) but I am alive, to enjoy life, read books,see movies, talk with friends,eat chocolate!

My husband has re-collected all the little army dinkie toys he had as a child, they were all lost! I think part of it is to recapture the joy we had as children playing with these beloved toys.

Secrets are funny things,what was once frowned on is no longer as startling as it was in an earlier era. Your daughter is a very wise young woman, wondering about a secret can perhaps unneccesarily magnify it's importance.
With this marvelous invention 'the internet' we can research into our family histories and find common information with other families...and benefit from their research as well. Serendipidous info can be found which can be quite amazing.

Best wishes to you and the other Word Wenches

[theo]

Happy Birthday, Edith!! :D

I have decided over the past few years that each year I celebrate a birthday, I am now one year younger...considering I'm a 26 year old woman trapped in the body of a 54 year old, for me, it evens out.

But yes, I am grateful I still have them. They beat the alternative.

I too, have unearthed some huge family secrets through my research, but for me, I am the last so there is no one to tell. It's all right though. Just knowing answers a lot of the questions I had growing up.

And maybe it really is true, we collect antiques because we're looking for answers or our own history. I am an avid collector.

As an aside, buggalugs, just a note; my husband's collection of 'little green army men' grows every year as my father-in-law excavates their back yard for garden work and other 'improvements'. Evidently, my husband loved a military burial. :lol: Now, they're all lined up on a shelf and the collection is rapidly increasing (much to my chagrin, since they don't exactly match my 18th century dining room table) and he enjoys showing them off. Odd things, men....

[Edith]

Theo -
I had a collection of little green army men! I inherited them from my brother and loved them much more than dolls. I named them and played with them, and then kept them in a box when I grew past the age for playng with them out in the open.
They were given away to a new child in the family one day when I was a school. Well, in all fairness, who would have believed I still treasured them?
And though I'm a magpie about antiques and have ocasionally seen one or two on sale, somehow I feel silly trying to collect them now. They aren't "mine".
So I've never bought one.
Strange things, women! :-)

[margaret]

Happy, happy birthday, Edith! I know you will enjoy it to the utmost, and celebrate in style.

[theo]

Oh, Edith!! You need to make new memories with new army men!

Wait, that doesn't sound right, does it?

;-)

But you should still buy the occasional one. It's nice to have those tactile memories, even if, in your case, they're just reminders and not personal ones.

[talpianna]

Edith, now you can collect those pricey Napoleonic Wars painted miniatures instead. Just think--a diorama of the Battle of Waterloo on your dining room table!

People, since Edith cannot reveal her secret, I think the least we can do is invent one for her. Here's a start:

1. She's the last of the Romanovs and the rightful Czarina of All the Russias.

2. She's the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper.

3. She's with child by Michael Jackson.

I can think of all sorts of good reasons for keeping at least two of those secret...

[Anne]

Wow. Look at that cover. Who knew a 19th century gentleman would be so ripped?! LOL! (I know you have no control over covers - I just couldn't resist! :))
Anyway, happy birthday! Hope it was a truly happy one.

[Francois]

There's a BBC programme in which celebrities trace their family history - Who do you think you are? The things they find out are not always pleasant and they broadcast it on national TV. I wonder what they miss out?

In this spoof our celebrity finds out that his great aunt was a prostitute, and it's all downhill from there...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c65QRaR16io