A Certain Narrative

I’ve been told the body inherits tragedy; that even if you don’t know the story, you hold it in your body; that what has happened affects your genes.

She knows about the boat her grandma traveled to America in. She knows there’s a question of whether the family should’ve been on it at all, but she also knows the scarier question was whether or not that family would cease to exist had her great grandfather not tried at all.

We are here now, and so is she, so maybe that isn’t a story of tragedy.

She doesn’t know about the great uncle who drowned – one on each side of her family. One day we’ll tell her, and I hope that when we do, knowing will only deepen her understanding and empathy for those who’ve lived before her. I hope she will see that she had no choice how she was wonderfully and fearfully created, but wonderfully and created she is, and the tragedies and the triumphs are a part of her, but they do not define her.

She chooses to step up.

She chooses to dive in.

She chooses to move forward and see what it is she can do with what she’s been given.