Our ancestors stories
A few weeks ago I took my Abuelita (grandmother) out for breakfast to celebrate her 86th birthday. It was just her and I so, I took the opportunity to ask her some powerful questions that I felt would allow for some reflection for her and a good dose of elderly wisdom and perspective for me.
I asked her, “knowing and having lived through all you’ve experienced, what would you go back and tell your younger self?” Maybe she didn't quite understand the question or maybe she answered with what she wanted to share. She said, “I’m glad that I’ve been able to bear my cross. That whatever happened I was able to carry it.” For whatever reason, I get emotional just writing that.
We sat there well beyond the time it took to finish our breakfast and she spoke about her life, the hardships she endured, and God.
My Abuelita didn't have an easy life and I don’t believe she knew how to give one to her 5 daughters either. Her mother died during childbirth and she was left to fill a woman’s role in the house at the tender age of 11. Her childhood was filled with work, responsibility, and devoid of a loving and nurturing parent. She married and came to the United States from Mexico with her daughters only to have to work and provide for her family, yet again, when her husband preferred to drink rather than work. Everyone, I’ve heard, just like her, had to grow up very fast and step into caretaking and responsibility well before their time.
As we continued to talk she didn’t sugar coat her feeling, the truth is, she never has. She said she knew before she married my grandfather that she would have a hard life with him. She knew this, because, she said, God told her. And, yet, she didn’t care, she wanted him, and decided to bear this cross because she loved him. She also shared about my grandfather’s passing and how just a week before he died they both forgave one another and said their goodbyes.
So much of her life was wrapped in survival, in having life be hard, and falling back on her faith, even if it was extreme so that she could continue to bear the burden of her reality. I could feel the identification to being victimized, to living with making the “wrong and hard” choice, to exerting control on whom and what she could, and to having pride in the material possessions she was able to acquire because of HER hard work.
I saw my grandmother a little differently and with more compassion that morning. I could also feel like the threads of her stories had in some way found themselves in and colored mine. There was no escaping some of those same beliefs being played out in different ways through different circumstance in the lives of those who came after her. I can only hope that at 86 years of age, I will be able to say that whatever life threw at me, I, too, was able to not only endure, but rise above it all. I hope that for the future generations I leave the load a little lighter and little more fun.
We don’t often take the time to hear the stories of our ancestors. These people are often merely strangers, only but a name on our family trees. And, yet these stories and beliefs are often handed down unconsciously from one generation to the next. Their stories in and of themselves are our stories. We only move past them when someone has the courage to look, question, and heal them.
This month, I encourage you to look back at your own ancestors and connect to their stories to see if you can find a thread of connection to loved ones or yourself. May we all write new stories, good ones, for those who will come after us.
