While rumaging through my stack of notebooks this morning looking for a blank journal, I found this little essay. No date, nothing else in the journal, not sure when I wrote it, but wanted to share it.

My Legacy

Pain, I thought. That's my legacy. The more I thought the more certain I felt. Pain, suffering; physical, mental and emotional.

The health problems my grandmother has faced seem cruel, invasive, humiliating along with being painful and debilitating. I've watched as the strength and vitality were sucked out of my mom through miscarriages and fatigue, pain and stress.

They both were betrayed by the one they loved, both fought the grip of depression as it mired them in hopelessness. Both have watched their children suffer, feeling helpless and incapable of fulfilling their job as nurturer and protector.

Yes, I have a legacy of pain. I too fight through the day, accepting the fatigue and aches as my parcel in life. I too have been betrayed by one I loved. I too have suffocated under the miasma of dispair, feeling worthless, unwanted, unacceptable.

And yet, there is more to this legacy. Nowhere will you find a woman more generous, more tender hearted than my grandmother. She cares deeply and loves freely. My mom has a passion for God and a consistency of faith that never wavers. I've watch her demenor soften over the years, the lines etched by pain blurred by humbleness and empathy.

By all rights these women ought to be bitter, resentful, angry at the world, at God, at men, at yet through all of the pain, they were corageous enough to love, and to be abundant in their loving.

This is my legacy. This is the path I walk. To love without measure or judgment, to be peaceful and at rest, to be passionate in my affair with the Divine, no matter the pain, the rejection or turmoils life throws my way.

We may look frail or beaten down on the outside, but I come from a line of strong, courageous women, women who choose to love unconditionally.