If I had
to choose two traits that define the Cooper bloodline, I’d choose resiliency
and stubbornness – or, as I prefer to call it, determination. Every family has
them – two or three of these traits that are stronger than the rest and that
somehow get carried through generation after generation after generation. It’s
just in their blood.
We all
always hope that we will only pick up the best of the best when it comes to
these traits and then hope that our children will do the same. But it doesn’t
always work that way and sometimes you have to make what you do get work to
your advantage and adapt. Hence the determination.
The
Cooper family tree – especially my grandpa’s branch of it – has seen their fair
share of struggles. Or battles. Struggles with illnesses. Lives of loved ones
ended far too soon. But they are a resilient bunch. It’s in their blood. So
they carry on. With more grace than most others would ever be able to – likely
out of sheer stubbornness – determination.
Farming was my grandpa’s livelihood.
It was what he loved. What he looked forward to. And what he built his life
upon. One of my favorite – and most prevalent – childhood memories of my
grandpa is when he would take both me and my brother out to the cattle yard to
do chores with him. We couldn’t have been much older than 6 and 8 when he
started taking us out there and how he ever had the bravery, or willingness, to
take two kids out there with him, in the pens, with cattle that weighted more
than double of all three of us combined, I will never know. But then again, the
Cooper blood runs strong in Derek and I, too, so maybe he didn’t have much of a
choice.
Stubbornness
kept him in a tractor, working the fields for far longer than he should have
been. And when he finally let go of his stubbornness about that, it was his
resiliency that gave him something new to be stubborn about – staying on the
farm place for as long as possible.
In more
recent years, when farming was no longer front and center, my fondest memories
revolve around going to my grandparents’ house on weekends when I was at school
and during a period of my life in which I have never been more thankful for the
Cooper resiliency that also runs in my blood. It was when I realized that my
grandpa’s compassion stemmed from his resiliency to the battlefields –
figurative and literal – of his own life.
It was
the figurative battlefields – the emotional battlefields – that fostered his
consideration for others and led to his insistence that it is always important to be kind to others.
Even your siblings. Because he knew all too well that anyone could be gone in
an instant and without warning.
It was
the literal battlefields from his time in the war that gave him his heart of
concern for those in similar situations – especially Steve. It was those
battlefields that led to an immediate bond between the two of them and formed
some of my favorite memories of more recent days – listening to them discuss
the ‘thens vs nows’ of the military – usually while sitting around the kitchen
table over a good ol’ game of dice.
His
resiliency to these (and many more) struggles and his stubbornness determination in his desire to overcome
them is what made him the man he became. It’s his bloodline traits and how he
utilized them throughout his life that led to his compassion. His drive. His
kindness. His legacy. And it is through his bloodline that his legacy will
continue to be carried.
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