Think about what you have carried forward from your parents, grandparents, or caregivers. What practices, ideas, or lifeways rooted in the past are you keeping alive? -- Cherokee descendent Rev. Dr. Randy Woodley.
When I read that, I took it as direct instructions so I've attempted to define my main "lifeways" rooted in the past that I kept alive.
Open familial love was not present in my life...in the lives of many '50s people actually, meaning we did not speak of love out loud.
I remember the time I was feeling heartbroken, sobbing because, much earlier in the day, Mom had said that my sister and I did not love her. I had held the hurt in until that night when we were all in bed, most of us asleep.
My sobs brought Mom to my bedside, and I finally admitted the cause of my hurt. On her knees, she said she must have been wrong, and she apologized to me...a first. never to be repeated but mentally relived frequently thereafter.
That is my key...that is the instance that crying became my way to win, to get my own way. The message I received and, until August 24, 1971, lived: To be the victim is to win.
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