Reflective Introspection And Generational Change

By S Renshaw


Over the holidays I spent time with my parents. This, one would think, would be a joyous time, but the reality that my parents, for medical, emotional & financial reasons, are not the same people that raised me. This has become a very difficult time for our family. In losing his sister in the last month, my father was in anguish over the spiritual state of her family and their lack of concern for their mother in her final days.

 

I started to see a thread, as I looked at not only my aunts life and marriage, but my grandmothers on both sides, and aunts, and cousins. A thread of women who see things the way they want to see them, the rosey-vision of deceit. These women, married to alcoholics, philanderers, predators and womanizers, lived hard lives. They were religiously taught divorce was wrong and one must live out the vows that destroyed the lives of their children. They refused to see the evil in their own bed. They turned blind eyes to abuses, even their own, for the sake of so-called salvation. They did what they thought best… but never acknowledged the truth. They saw good in the one that brutalized them and their children.

 

I know times have changed and women have been empowered in this generation, but in this family… I refuse to be another woman that continues to be subject to anything that does not honor me, on all levels. I have walked the road of my ancestors, so I don’t say this judgmentally, but in recognition that I, myself lived that life too. But, everyday, since I saw the thread, I choose to BREAK THE CHAIN!!! My daughters (3) will not watch me be ashamed any longer.

Shame and abuse is no longer their legacy, but I choose now to give them beauty for my ashes and those that came before me!, strength for the fear that bound us from the freedom we are destined to live in!!!, and a future to see things exactly as they are and to know they deserve honor, respect,and love!!! Today, and henceforth… I choose Me!!! Authentic and awkward, holy and hostile against abuse! I stand, not because I haven’t fallen, but because those that fell before me, have turned on the light so I can see!!! And live the life I am called to live.

Women, sisters, friends…. Stand with me!!!