Since February 27, 2024—when my son, Aidan Lee Hoglen, died at fifteen from Flu B—my identity has been shattered. The woman I was before that day no longer exists. What remains is someone still learning how to stand, how to breathe, and how to live with the weight of absence.
Until recently, I resisted the idea that anything meaningful could come again. Grief narrowed my world. Time became distorted. Some days it feels as if Aidan died a month ago; other days, I am stunned to realize that nearly two years have passed. Trauma does that; it folds time inward.
Last fall, a friend told me I had to find “it,” whatever might recenter me and give me reason to keep going. I argued with him for weeks. Nothing, I was certain, would change my life. Writing wouldn’t help. Memory wouldn’t help. Hope felt dishonest.
But as the holidays approached, I sensed what was coming. Thanksgiving left me raw. On Black Friday, restless and alone, I wandered online and landed, almost accidentally, on Ancestry’s genealogy platform. With nothing to lose, I purchased a research package and began tracing records late into the night.
I did not expect what followed.
The research pulled me in like a hound dog on a cold trail, unable to stop once the scent was caught. Names surfaced that had hovered at the edges of my childhood: Greenes and Webbs. Then others—Woody, Swaney, Raines, Blankinship—each opening a door.
And then I saw the name John Sevier.
Grief had buried a memory I didn’t know I still carried: a month before Aidan died, we had begun this very research together. I had told him about Sevier. Due to trauma, I had forgotten that moment entirely, until it all returned at once.
That night, I wept not only for my son, but for the realization that purpose had not died with him. I am a 7th great-granddaughter of Tennessee’s first governor, John Sevier, and Sarah Jane Hawkins. More than that, I am still here.
Still, I needed verification beyond my own conviction. So, I reached out to the Daughters of the American Revolution and asked to have my research reviewed. It was already December, and I expected the process to take months.
Instead, on January 15, I received the call.
My research, I was told, was impeccable. I was, without question, a Sevier daughter.
The news stunned me. As a lifelong lover of history, I had not only uncovered lineage. I had found a new platform of identity and a reason to keep moving forward. It also brought unexpected joy: my son, Aidan, was an 8th great-grandson of the Sevier line as well. His place in history had not vanished with his death.
Yesterday, I met with my Regent and officially signed the paperwork to become a Daughter of the American Revolution. The moment mattered deeply to me—not as a title, but as a marker of becoming. To honor it, I brought my grandmother’s last Bible and my gilded copy of the United States Constitution with me. Both felt necessary. Both told the truth of where I come from.
In claiming this lineage, I reclaimed myself. My soul re-centered. My sense of duty returned.
I may not have children anymore. I cannot physically bear them. But I am still bound by duty, to my ancestors, to the sacrifices that made this country, and to the bloodlines that carried me here.
The Daughters of the American Revolution marks a new journey for me. I do not yet know where it will lead. I only know that I am no longer drifting.
This lineage does not elevate me; it obligates me to remember, to tell the truth, and to serve with integrity.
