my grandmother

My grandmother once told me of someone she knew. She told me of the tragedy and the hardship and downright evil she had faced. She told me of the most courageous act ever taken. That even after all of that, after having been given every right to become hardened, to become biter, to become enraged, that this incredible woman stayed gentle. She stayed kind and soft-hearted, that she was the kindest woman my grandmother could remember. My grandmother who doesn’t talk a lot about the past, my grandmother who despite her gentle nature has a wicked sense of humour. 

My grandmother she told me this precious story. This story of a relative of mine who’s name I’ve sadly forgotten, it has stayed with me all this time. I do not know how long I’ve know this story only that I’ve carried it as close to my heart as I could, even when it felt impossible. My grandmother, who gave me my father, she is a complex person. I never can quite tell what she’s thinking. 

My grandmother, she doesn’t tell many stories, instead she’s more content to ask after your day and how its been. To this day it’s a wonder she told that story at all. Regardless it’s stayed with me ever still. It struck a cord in me so deep I’ve yet to even see where it landed and took root. It struck me over the head like getting hit in the face with a flower, it was startling but it was right. That very day I vowed to not let this life tear me down, that it could kick me to the curb over and over again but I would not let it harden my heart. I promised I’d try my very hardest to become like my older relative whom I had never met. 

I suppose that’s the thing about a legacy, you never know just how long that bell will continue to toll. I wonder sometimes if she would have been proud of me, despite forgetting her name I’ve tried my best to live by her example. I know very little else of this relative, only that she would have been my great removed something. Still the legacy of family is a sad one to me, so in this case I suppose its all right I hand-picked this wisdom. 

Like most everyone else I’ve ever met my family is not one without its dark parts, it is not without imperfections. I have never been blind to the fact and I will not parade around as if it were the case. I will simply choose to remember and believe in my family for their great many kindnesses, for their great wisdom. Even when it comes from a place of pain, a place of an unhealed heart. As easier as it would be I won’t leave them to the wayside, I will continue to pray and hope that one day they too will choose to lean into the light. Because there is alway a choice and just because it would be easier to walk the other way, don’t make it the right way. 

I am incredible lucky to have grown up with two loving grandmothers who had equally and drastically different life experiences. I benefit by receiving two sides of the same coin, by finding wisdom in the worn pages of their long lived lives. 

I do not know where I would be, how I would be, had my grandmother not told me that story one fateful day. I know I am better for it, even when I don’t feel it.