There are seasons in a mother’s life when loving her daughter means holding on, and there are seasons when it means opening her hands. Gia is standing at the edge of one of hers, and I am learning that my job is not to hand her every answer – or every wound I inherited – but to remind her what belongs to her and what never did.
May she inherit the love, the strength, the humor, the stubborn hope, and every beautiful thing that came before her. But the chains? Those end with me. My daughter gets the crown. She gets the freedom to become. And when HER seasons change, I hope she remembers that becoming is not a betrayal of who she was; it is the fulfillment of who she has always been.
A line often attributed to the Sufi poet and mystic Rumi says, “The cure for the pain is in the pain.” I couldn’t agree more. Like the most beautiful, albeit bittersweet, dances with love, that wisdom has transcended time and space.
As for me, I believe pain and suffering have also transcended time and space through the root systems of our family trees. The agony lives on until someone finally says, “No more!” and decides to calm the fire of that generationally gifted pain within themselves. That’s how we begin to stop the toxins that poisoned our roots from bleeding through the hearts of the generations that follow.
… the Monday after he shot himself, someone hauled my ass to the doctor. They wanted to make sure I was medicated so that I could function. So, they put me on a prescription of something for 30 days. Umm, I don’t even know what it was. I just remember I was numb. My mom came to move in to the house with me for a while. Of course, I didn’t leave my room unless I had to … to handle, like, the business of it all … go the funeral home, make the arrangements … but I didn’t leave my room that much. Plus, they were shoving drugs down my throat to help me cope with everything. And, umm, I had a 30-day prescription of whatever it was. Honestly? I couldn’t tell you what they had me on. I wanna say it was Klonapin. Whatever it was, it was pretty effective. I was numb … I couldn’t feel anything … but after my prescription was over on the 30th day … 35 days later I guess we’ll just call it … I had no more medication. I had no more … nothing to numb the pain or the reality or to change anything, and it was time for me to wake up and smell the coffee.
And you know what? I remember that I have these blinds in my room. Well, it was our room. We kept the blinds down all the time to black out all the Sun. We would do that at night, so … we liked to sleep in the total darkness. And they had those blinds down. For 30 days in a row, I never opened them throughout the whole medication process after the 22nd. But, on the day that my medicine ran out, there was nobody there, my mom had already gone home. It was just me and the dog and my new reality … my new life … and I got up and I put my feet on the ground and I just … I remember going to the window, and I opened up my blinds, and I looked out into the backyard. I looked at the Sun. I look at the sky. It was a blue sky. It was really pretty outside. It was September. It was the end of September when that day happened, and I just made a decision. I said to myself, “I can either let this define me or I can not. I can either be a victim or not. I can either crumble or not. I can either get up or stay down.” And I made the decision to get up and that was then.
I’m so glad. I’m so thankful. I’m so thankful for everything I’ve been through in the last … not just the last 283 days or whatever … I’m so thankful for everything that I’ve been through in the last 50 years. I’m gonna cry. I wouldn’t change a thing! Everything. Every moment. Every time I’ve fallen. Every time I’ve risen. In the darkest hours of my life, that’s where I found the richest blessings. That’s where I found myself. I found myself in all my broken pieces. All of that pain … the pain that I have experienced has been my greatest gift … my greatest blessing.
I wish so much that I had a way to “ozmose” what I know and how I feel and what I’ve learned on my journey to as many of you as I can, because I know there are people in my atmosphere right now as I’m sitting here waiting for my girls. I call them “my girls”. (My daughter’s friends are my daughters, too. That’s how it’s always been in my house. She’s got a knack for picking amazing girls to surround herself … now, put it this way. She hasn’t always been so good at that, but she’s got a really good tribe now, and these are her tribe for the long haul. I’m thinking that the people that she has in her life right now are gonna be her people 40 years from now. I can tell! But anyway, I’ve digressed.)
I know that there are people in this world at this very minute that are crumbling. They’re questioning … they’re hurting … they’re aching … they’re dying … they’re hiding … they’re fighting for their moment … and I wish that I could just give you what I have and just “poof” it into you, but all I can tell you is just hang on. It’s “Chin Up! Knuckles Out!” You know that’s what I like to say. I’m telling you guys … everything that you need to survive and overcome? It’s inside of you. If I can do this, YOU can do this! I am the happiest fucking bitch I’ve ever met. I really am. I have joy in my heart. I have peace in my heart. I hope I don’t have to leave tomorrow, but if I do, I’m happy. I have lived and I have loved. I’ve had the most amazing pain and the most amazing loves of two men in my life that … three, if you count Christian … my son, Christian … I have been lucky enough to have had the sweetest, most truest love that any woman could have ever had. I’ve had that twice now, and how lucky am I, because there are women in this world that haven’t had that once.
And when I think about all of the things … all of the gifts that those two men left for me, I’m so thankful, because … I wouldn’t change it even if I had known the way the stories were gonna end. As painful as it was to watch the one guy hit the … I watched someone dying on … I’ve watched THREE people die. I watched a daughter die in my arms. I saw a man dying in the street. The man … the first man that I ever loved in my life … I watched him laid out in the middle of the road after he hit a brick wall going 90 miles an hour. I had to see that with my own eyes.
And then I watched my husband “dying out loud“. I watched him. I didn’t … I wasn’t with him when he shot himself, but I watched him dying. I watched it day by day. It was the worst thing. I mean, I can’t even tell you. It was so hard to do. It was unbearable to see a human being dying in front of me. But I did it. But I wouldn’t … and had I … even had I known the way it was gonna end, I wouldn’t trade it. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, because I figured out the secret. I figured out … I figured everything out and I’m so thankful for that.
Please, God, let it be me! Let me be the one to have absorbed the very last drops of poison that bled out and suffocated the rotting roots of our sick and dying tree so that the branches of my children and theirs will reach up and touch the Sun instead of digging back down into hell. I am humbled and honored to have been chosen for such a sacred calling and for getting to know “the secret”.
Happy Birthday to this song I’ve been listening to faithfully for going on thirty-one years now. It, too, has transcended the time, space, and beautiful changing seasons of my life.
Nine years ago today, the Dallas County Bureau of Vital Records finally issued my husband’s court-ordered delayed certificate of birth because his “parents” couldn’t be bothered to memorialize his birthday legally:
In case you didn’t know by now, my husband’s childhood was less than optimal. His mother all but threw him away beginning the day he was born, then left him for good 18 months later, because, I suppose, he wasn’t as “stellar” as his older three siblings who were good enough for her to stick around for. It was only ever him she didn’t want, and trust me when I tell you, it’s been a sobering reality for him to wake up to every day. Keep in mind also that almost from the onset of meeting him, and especially once we got married, I’d been asking (if not begging) for the “family” he was left with after “the thing that gave birth to him” kicked him to the curb to please find some pictures of him as a child. Even one. JUST ONE? Does anyone have even ONE picture of this man from his childhood? But I’ve digressed.
With that in mind, here are a few things for all you parents out there to think about, and even all you hands-on aunts, uncles, and primary caregivers. Remember, it’s not just those of us who have procreated who can have seriously positive and life-changing impacts on the little people standing in our halo (or toxic and malignant ones).
Are you painting your self-portrait small with just a tiny “here and now” brush, or are you creating an EPIC masterpiece with MUCH broader strokes that even your grandkids’ grandkids will treasure? Are you living out loud with power, grace, passion, and purpose? Your children and THEIR children will reap EXACTLY what you sow, so, SHOW THEM everything you TELL THEM! And (ps), don’t forget to keep a journal or keepsake memorializing all the memories and highlights so you don’t leave your “here and now” as a mystery or a subject for debate. Leave your fingerprints on everything (but hopefully not bloody ones like the ones my husband’s “parents” left all over him and my “father” is leaving all over us.
But more so than anything …
Be honest with your kids. Talk to them. Spend time with them. Share what’s in your heart, what you stand for, and what you believe in (but don’t shove it down their throats). Let them know it’s okay, if not encouraged, to take a different path than you. Let them know that you DON’T want them to be your “mini-me”, but rather, “the first of THEM“.
In the meantime …
To My Kids:
Please know how hard I’m really trying to change the crooked trajectory of this family tree. Yes, I very much do want you to find new and different paths of your own and not be “mini-mes”. I want you to be the first and the last of both of you and brave enough to CHOOSE happiness. More so than anything, I hope someday when the time has come, you’ll listen to this song and think of me, but know also that when I hear it now, I think of both of you. You’re not just my legacy … you’re the LIVING love letters I never want to stop reading while I’m still here with you. Remember that …
LEGACY
Won’t you walk with me ’til both of our feet bleed? Won’t you walk with me through the blindness we can see? If I set you free, will you promise me I will see you again? I will walk with you ’til both of our feet bleed. ‘Cause we are one … we run free … I am you and you are me. You sacrificed everything. I am and will always be your legacy. I will dance with you ’til the shadows slip away. I will lay my hands on you to ease your pain. I will sing to you, I will guide you for everything. Won’t you dance with me till the shadows slip away? We are one … we run free … I am you and you are me. You sacrificed everything. I am and will always be your legacy. I promise I will see you again. I will find you on the other side. {In This Moment}
Why are you doing this? What’s your reason? Who’s your audience? Will you ever actually take the stage? Guess what, people? The day will surely come when I’ll finally reach for a microphone and hit an actual stage with the unfiltered roar of all the truth bombs and hard-earned wisdom I’ve gotten to earn on a road that’s been laden with broken glass, bloodied hands, and tired feet. But for now?
One of the speakers I was privileged to sit before this weekend, Tu “Ronin” Lam, said:
One moment can change the day. One day can change a life. One life can change the world.
Well, if this exchange between me and my son isn’t proof positive that I’m exactly where I need to be doing exactly what I was meant to do, then … well … never mind that. IT IS! You see, these weren’t just simple texts between a mother and her son. They were “a moment” … a moment for me to take the most important stage of all before the “kid” who is still very much watching me.
When I saw this Heraclitus quote recently, one of my all-time favorite songs by one of my all-time favorite bands immediately came to mind, so I thought I’d pair them together in honor of the 36th anniversary of its release this week:
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the course of my bittersweet and beautiful lifetime, it’s that the only thing that never changes is the fact that everything changes. Yet, the mere contradiction in the constant “inconsistency” of our existence is something we can all be thankful for. Do me a favor and close your eyes for three seconds, then open them:
ONE one hundred …
… TWO one hundred …
… THREE one hundred!
Well? Did you do it? GOOD! Do you realize that literally everything about not just your life, but the world as we know it kept changing. While you were busy counting, and even if nothing about you or your surroundings seems different, CHANGE HAPPENED! Meanwhile, the wisest amongst us know that the ability to adapt to constant change is the one true key to survival. Just think about your ancestors, God rest their souls:
One hundred years have gone and men again they came that way to find the answer to the mystery. They found his body lying where it fell on that day, preserved in time for all to see. What became of the man that started? All are gone and their souls departed. Left me here in this place so all alone.
As overwhelming as this whole “living” gig can seem, and especially given that sometimes it really can feel as though you’re walking solo through a frozen tundra – NO! You are never all alone! JUST LOOK INSIDE A MIRROR! You are them! They are you! You’re the living embodiment of the quarters they kept and all of the changes they had to weather so that you could be standing upright in this brave new world. They’re beside you and behind you every step of the way, whispering:
Hey, you got this! You’re one of ours and we’ve already carved your path.
Look, I’m no scientist and certainly no expert on the power of our DNA, but I do know that somewhere in the history of mankind was the very first of “me and mine” and “you and yours”. I’m a woman who stands firmly and proudly upon the mountain of untold trials, errors, lessons, and survival of the countless people who came before me. I’m the living, breathing warrior QUEEN they produced. Is there really “true royalty” in my bloodline? Who knows? WHO CARES? As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a piece of paper or public opinion that made me who I am today … it’s all those beloved “cave-people” of mine who set me up for success, NOT FAILURE, so imma make sure that I represent them well and make sure that none of their sacrifices, or the wisdom that’s hard-wired in me, has been in vain.
For the record, although on the surface, the song seems dark and sad, for me, it became the road map to the flip side of its lyrics:
But now it seems to me that NOTHING’S lost and ALL is gained. Sometimes things ARE what they seem. They heard me calling, rescued me, and set me free in this place, but NEVER lost and alone.
I’ll wrap this up now with one of my favorite quotes by Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr-Baumann, the beloved Aboriginal activist, faithful Christian, and artist:
When we heal ourselves, we heal our ancestors from wounds that run deep in our family. When we heal our ancestors, we heal the world from wounds that run deep in humanity.
Carry on, now, all you cavepeople, and have a HAPPY and THANKFUL Thanksgiving!
My babies, I know what you’re thinking. You and I have much to say. And you’ve been making me crazy trying to understand, but it’s impossible at your age. I know I said I’ll always try … but you’re going to bed alone again tonight … and you lie there in the dark and wonder why.
You’re so afraid your life is over and nothing I can say can change your mind. How can anybody be so selfish and treat you both so cruel? Go on and scream at me and cry! I’ll always hold you in my soul … and I’m never going to leave you all alone … but your mommy doesn’t live here anymore.
Everybody’s got a boat upon the ocean. Not everybody’s sailing out to sea. And is there someone there for me?
I did it for you … because love should teach you joy, and not the imitation that your momma and daddy tried to show you.
I did it for you … and for me … and because I still believe there’s only one thing you can never give up and never compromise on, and that’s the real thing you need in love.
{Adapted from “The Real Thing” by Kenny Loggins}
Love, Mama
Meanwhile …
A line often attributed to the great Sufi poet and mystic Rumi says, “The cure for the pain is in the pain.” I couldn’t agree more. Like all our beautiful and often bittersweet dances with love, that wisdom has transcended space and time. As for me, however, I say that pain and suffering have likewise transcended time and space through the root systems of our family trees. Until that day comes when someone finally says, “No more!” and then decides to calm the fire of that generationally gifted pain within themselves once and for all … such that the toxins that once poisoned its roots stop bleeding out through the hearts of its ancestors … the agony caused by the poison in its roots lives on. Please, God, let it be me! Let me be the one to have absorbed the very last drops of poison that bled out and suffocated the rotting roots of our sick and dying tree so that the branches of my children and theirs will reach up and touch the Sun instead of digging back down into hell. I am humbled and honored to have been chosen for such a sacred calling and for getting to know “the secret.”
So, yes, I did it for me … but I also did it for them … because love really should teach them joy … not the lie that their momma and daddy tried to show them. Pray God that I’m the one who stops this sick and broken cycle once and for all.
