What am I?

A few months ago out of the blue Lauren asked, "What am I?"

"What do you mean?" I replied, as I wasn't sure what sort of answer she was expecting. Tall, short, hot, cold, Peter Pan, Cinderella, bunny rabbit, puppy dog. The answer could be anything depending on the circumstance or whatever game is being played.

"Well, Rachel* is Jewish, Max* is Ethiopian. What am I?"

"Oooh... right." I thought out  loud. I knew this question would come along one day and have yet to come up with a simple answer.

"Well, you were born in Canada like me and Daddy, so you're mostly Canadian. But... (then I took a deep breath) Grandma Mary is from Africa, Grandpa Philip was from England, Grandma Bernadette is from Haiti and Grandpa Fred was from Haiti and France, so you're from all over the world!"

I didn't even bother mentioning that Grandma Mary's mother was from Angola and her family was originally from Portugal. And Grandma Mary's paternal grandfather who was from England sailed to Bermuda and married a Bermudian and they both settled in Sierra Leone. And that Grandpa Philip had a wee bit o' Irish in him too.

What I got in return was a blank stare, followed by, "Oh." And then she went off to do something else somewhere else.

I'm not sure she processed anything at all of what I said. She's still working on sorting out that we live in Toronto, which is a city in Ontario, which is a province in Canada. Never mind having any concept of where in the world Haiti or England is.

I will never come up with a simple answer, but what I can do with Lauren is spend time looking at family photographs and maps and reading about all the different countries that our family tree has branched out to. Hopefully she will someday realize that what she is, is pretty lucky to have such a rich and diverse family history.



*Real people, but not their real names!