The Stories We Carry

What my grandmother never told me about survival, loss, and the dreams she buried...

My grandmother never talked about certain things.

I was told she lost her first child as a newborn. Then gave birth to twins, but lost one of them too.

The baby that survived was my mother.

My grandfather and his mother forced her to give my mother away. They were better positioned financially, and she had no choice in the matter.

My mom carried that pain of abandonment her whole life, not knowing it was way more complicated than that.

My grandmother went on to have five more children. Four with an Asian man. The daughter who came after my mom was also raised by her father, but she kept the four children from the Asian man.

From what I understand, he wasn't around much. Just stopped by long enough to leave her with another child to raise on her own.

But with these children, the choice was hers to make.

I think…

But… colorism also played a role.

She made it known who her favorites were. I carried that feeling of abandonment too.

She told me I was "too dark."

I wish I had gotten the chance to ask her about her life though. What was she actually going through mentally?

Did she grieve her first child, the one she lost as a newborn? Did she grieve the twin she lost?

Did anyone check on her?

I think about the shame she must have carried. The way she learned to see herself through other people's eyes instead of her own.

What would her life have been if she had known who she really was?

Because here's what I remember: she was born in the countryside of Haiti, the only one out of 13 children to make it to America.

She was a businesswoman.

She was also incredibly good at playing the lottery, winning exactly the amounts she needed simply by following what she saw in her dreams.

Her intuition was sharp.

Her survival instincts, sharper.

But survival and healing aren't the same thing.

The irony wasn't lost on me that the first daughter she had given away was the one who made her American dream possible.

But I don't know what other dreams died with her.

This is what I mean when I talk about the stories our grandmothers carried.

The grief they swallowed.

The choices they made from places of pain we'll never fully understand. The dreams they buried so deep they forgot they ever had them.

Our grandmothers survived things that would break most of us. They carried stories they didn't have permission to tell, pain they weren't allowed to process, dreams they couldn't afford to pursue.

But we have something they didn't always have.

Permission to speak.

Permission to say NO.

Permission to leave when we need to.

Permission to choose for ourselves.

Permission to heal not just our own wounds, but the ones that were passed down to us.

This is what this space is for.

The stories that deserve to be told. The voices that deserve to be heard. The healing that's been waiting for generations.

Because the stories we carry deserve to see the light.

“Layers of Her” Acrylic on 20×20 canvas. Artwork by Tarra Lu