What Remains

Every family hands something down.

A recipe that was never written. A laugh that shows up at funerals. A mind that broke and was whispered about behind closed doors. A drink that was never just one, and a daughter who learned to hide the bottles. A way of leaving without saying goodbye.

Some of it hurts for generations. Some of it is the reason anyone survived.

Each of us works through what we can, so our children won’t have to. But they do not meet us at the end of that work. They grow up alongside it.

A child finds it piece by piece. In what she was given. In what was kept from her. Then in herself.