I know I’m not alone when I say that I had a difficult relationship with my mom.

With so many individual, familial, and societal forces at play, I’m honestly not sure our culture is set up to nurture and support our mother/daughter relationships in a very positive way, especially through the individuation years, try as we might.

And so, as I’ve sat with the Heritage Journal spread for my mom, my emotions have ebbed and flowed…

Memories have popped up and lingered in surprising ways and places…

And I’ve worked intentionally to convey the pieces of my mother that mean the most to me as well as honestly convey her very real human experience as a person during her short 53 years on this earth.

It’s been 18 years since she passed away under rather confusing circumstances after a battle with an addiction she used to mask her traumas in lieu of proper coping skills or a support system she would allow to help.

I’ve done a lot of work over the last 18 years to heal the trauma, anger, and sadness I’ve carried forward from her and within myself…

(Therapy has been life-changing but the spiritual work has also been necessary and deeply profound.)

And as the layers of grief, confusion, frustration, and so much more, have fallen away or been integrated in positive ways, the moments of joy, happiness, peace, and pure love have broken through.

Memories of Christmas decorations and candle light…

Fieldtrips attended and kindness towards friends…

Dancing in the kitchen and lace curtains on the windows…

Truth telling and fierce loyalty…

Creative endeavors and a passion for reading…

Flower gardens full of cosmos and morning glories…

The best damn tomato sauce using home-grown tomatoes…

And so much more.

Thank goodness.

Just because you didn’t heal every generational trauma, doesn’t mean you didn’t heal none.

My mom was complicated (as we all are), and while there are many things that I wish could have been different in her life so that she could’ve had a more gentler time on this planet, I know that logic is faulty.

Our lives unfold before us and while there are many forces at play we don’t have control over, there are plenty of others that we do.

She made a lot of good choices in her life…

and some really poor ones…

But she was an absolutely lovely person with a heart of gold (and an armor of steel) who did her very best to love the ones she loved deeply.

There are pieces of her legacy that aren’t pretty but they deserve to be spoken of because she was whole, complicated person who was dealt a shit hand and still kept her heart open enough that everyone around her knew at their core that they were truly loved.

And that is the best legacy of all, no?

I hope that I have decades in front of me with which to continue to reflect and heal and create whatever legacy of my own is meant to linger after I do, but if all we have is right now, all we can do is our best, no matter how flawed, and trust that in the end, the good will outweigh the “bad”.

Onward,

Melis