i.

I read somewhere that we inherit our mother’s trauma without ever truly understanding it.

Do you think that’s true?

Do you think that when she fed us from her own body she was passing down more than just antibodies and nutrients,

Feeding us herself in small, bite size pieces so that her sacrifices were easier to swallow?

 

ii.

My mother’s mother was cheated on. My father’s mother was too.

My mother, well, what she refuses to know she pretends won’t hurt her.

I feed on these morsels, these scraps of information

And I fill myself with the fear that I will be, too.

 

iii.

“I’d rather die than become you,” a woman screams at her mother on the screen.

The audience gasps, the ultimate blow!

The mother wonders where she’s gone wrong.

Despite her daughter’s visceral reaction, she still comes up short. Must be for the drama, then.

As a five-year-old I grasp my mother’s hand and silently vow that I would never say something so hurtful.

At seventeen, I know that to die would be to possess more self-love.

 

iv.

On Sunday I listen to lessons on intimacy, infidelity and respect and when it is over

Jesus says, “this bread is my body and this wine is my blood.”

And with this, he absolves us of our sins.

“Do this in remembrance of me.”

 

My mother says, “this is my body that you have destroyed and my spirit you have crushed.”

And with this, she passes down her sins.

“Carry this in remembrance of me,

And all that has been done to me.”

 

v.

“My father cheated on my mother,” she says.

“I will never be like my mother,” she brags.

Intergenerational trauma is funny like that. Cyclical. And isn’t that ironic, Ms. Morisette?

That my mother speaks with the voice of a tired, weathered woman but all I hear is a five-year-old promising she’d never say anything so hurtful.

 

vi.

I read somewhere that we inherit our mother’s trauma

But I’ve never read how to unlearn it.

I read somewhere that we inherit our mother’s trauma

But I’ve never read about holding our fathers accountable for traumatizing them.

I’ve read somewhere that we inherit our mother’s trauma

 

But I’ve read somewhere that mothers breastfeed to pass down the antibodies they’ve developed over time,

Pass down their own defenses and fortifications.

Like her body is apologizing for what her mind and mouth can’t fathom.

I hope that’s true.