Inheritance

“It is what it is.” -Unknown

I used to cringe when those words left her lips. My mom said it as some sort of mantra. Often, she’d say something hurtful, then in reply to my pain she’d say, “it is what it is.”

The mother daughter-relationship is truly baffling. There are no sharper blades than the words spoken–no softer fabric than the love woven. We were no different.

Some days, she was a saint and I’d think I couldn’t admire anyone more. Other days, she’d make me feel worthless or affirm the words of those who thought so. As she got older, she became sweeter but I hadn’t gotten past the hurt and she hadn’t finished hurting me.

In her last days, we didn’t speak much. After 22 years of just inhaling the hurt and holding on to it with an iron grip, I told her that I was moving away, so she couldn’t hurt me anymore. I lived in such a black and white world then. I had held on to everything she did and everything she allowed, without seeing everything she did and everything she allowed.

A week before Thanksgiving, I got a call from my sister. She told me that this would be my mom’s last week. I rushed to the hospital in a confusing state of pain. When I saw her, I sobbed, “I’m sorry”, knowing I’d never get the apology that I needed.

After she was gone, a fuller picture was painted, as my family told stories of the pain my mom endured from her parents–stories that she’d been too prideful to tell me, stories that I cannot repeat.

I was confused because while I’d known my grandmother to be especially horrible at times, my mom always took care of her and defended her. I couldn’t understand how should she could stomach to be around her. I’d walk around with my nose up like I was better than my mom, but I left the presence of a dying woman who did her best to love and take care of me. And her best sometimes left me in pieces, but it also made me strong enough to fix what was broken.

In therapy, a truth came to me–maybe when she spoke hurtful words, she was passing down what she thought was mine to inherit.

The extent to which her mother betrayed her cannot be matched, but it does not excuse the pain that I feel and did not deserve.

Today, I have “it is what it is” tattooed on my back, as a reminder of everything I should and should not be. As a reminder that life and love are complex. As a reminder that pain can be healed but not erased.