Like tiny grains of sand gathering themselves together to build a natural formation that will rise out of the desert, my DNA is transcribed, slowly revealing itself to become Me.
With memories woven together from the memories of my ancestors, bringing together the exact formula of life force intelligence so that I may come into this life. The past breathes within me, shaping the path that lays before me.
The Essence of Motherhood
We are all mothers, to be female is to mother. Being a mother is not limited to bearing children - we instinctively mother those around us: our friends, family, colleagues, our work, pets, nature, our homes, ourselves, even our vehicles and plants - giving names, life, and care to the things we love. Mothering is an energy, a force, an instinct.
We all come from a mother, and she from a mother before her, and so it goes on, an unbroken thread stretching back through time. The imprint of the generations of women who walked before us echo through our lives, as do the silent stories carried within our DNA. And from here, our transformative menopause journey begins. The Madhya blossoms uniquely for each of us, yet the ancient rhythm it follows is timeless.
Tracing My Lineage
To understand my own script - to grasp the trail of generational traumas, traits and whispers tiptoeing their way through my every decision - I must look back as far as I can, and thanks to modern genealogy we can peer into the past with greater clarity than ever before, and there is much to learn from looking back. We are so much more that the sum of our experiences that we have in this life, the influence of the generations before us is etched on our DNA, lending to our reality, characteristics and tendencies, that help to shape who we are and who we become.
We are the living echoes of those that came before us.
The recognition and understanding of those that came before me holds the key to how things will unfold for me now. And so through their stories, I begin to unravel my own.
Clara's Story
"Dimly lit but full of cheer, frequented by the steady stream of colourful characters, the busy little inn was often a dark place. My great-great-grandmother Clara, added a vibrant and welcome lift to these walls steeped in history, she is diligent and dutiful, helping her father, the Publican, keep the inn a popular establishment.
She is cheery, cheeky, and intelligent, but without boundaries - often too kind and trusting for her own good. She falls easily for charming words, but is a hard worker and begins working in a job outside of the inn. She works hard in this well-to-do household, aspiring to lift herself out of poverty, but not understanding the ulterior motives of the tongued gentleman she works for, she finds herself in an unfortunate way for a young unmarried woman"
This is the picture I have in my mind of the beautiful soul who would go on to birth my great-grandmother. We know through stories that our Clara found herself in a very difficult position indeed. In these times one can only imagine the immense overwhelm in this kind of situation.
There was no benefit of empowered choice, in fact this kind of things hardly existed for women at all. We truly take for granted all that women endured, and fought long and hard for so that we in the modern era can live such free lives.
A Hard Path to Walk
Pregnant and alone was not a good position to find oneself in during the late 1900s. Without support or acknowledgement from any man or family, Clara had tot turn to the Workhouse - a grim and cruel place for those with no money. There, she sought food and lodging while carrying her precious babe in her belly.
Workhouses in the UK were places of great hardship for those already experiencing unbearable suffering. The food was minimal, lacking essential nutrients. The work was heavy. Clothing was a uniform, and personal identity was not encouraged. This was the early social welfare system, and it was bitterly difficult. By the ate 1900's they had improved somewhat from the early Dickenson type of horror, but nonetheless they were still place of shame for the poor. in her article - The Victorian Workhouse - Jessica Brain paints a picture of illness, cruelty, hard labour and starvation - I shudder at the though of my ancestor living through this kind of experience.
Albeit, if we were to look at the alternative - being sent to a Convent to have her baby - we could imagine that it may equally have presented a different kind of trauma, and for this we can be grateful that at least mother and babe emerged from this time intact and consequently thrived.
I can imagine Clara crying tears of fear, shame, and perhaps guilt at the position she found herself in and the life she was about to bring her babe into. But this time of her life also fostered strength and adaptability as she battled each day to stay healthy for the arrival of her wee girl. Clara went on to have 2 more children, one would hope she fared much better in these experiences and that her later years were kinder. But her experience, her resilience, became a silent lesson passed down through generations.
Family Secrets and Unravelling Truths
The story relayed to us as children was that my great-grandmother was found on the doorsteps of a kindly home and was raised by an "aunt" who ensured she had a comfortable and respectable life.
We were told that a rich benefactor supported my grandmother and her siblings through the best schools and into adulthood. But I wonder - was the father, our great-great-grandfather, a man who felt he must fulfil his duties to his child, even if from afar? Or was the benefactor someone who simply took pity on our dear Clara and the hardship she had endured?
You can imagine the stories we told ourselves as children, a mysterious benefactor, how utterly romantic, perhaps he was a nobleman, and we had blue blood in our veins. We would create great tales around this, but the reality is he could have just as likely been a codswallop of a man, ensuring the continuation of his lineage all the way from Wales up to Scotland and everywhere in between.
As the years have gone on and more of the story has unfolded it appears that no such abandonment on the doorstep occurred and instead there was some sort of agreement between Clara and a family member or friend for the care of baby Leah, perhaps Clara acknowledged that she had no way to support her daughter and instead of leaving her in an orphanage she saw the merit of this offer. Either way, our dear Clara loved her daughter so much that she gave her to a loving family so that she may have a better life.
This story has echoed through our family, time and again - a memory, a pattern, an experience that more than one female in our family has repeated. Why we are the way we are - the picture starts to become clearer as we begin to understand the trials and tribulations of our loved ones.
And as our story unwinds and we slowly learn more, we search for these answers - the answers to who we are and where we came from.
The sacrifices and experiences of the past ripple forward, shaping the choices of generations to come.
Strength in Survival
The generational echo, reverberating through female after female in our family, is not a story dissimilar to Clara's. My grandmother, my mother, myself - we each carry the imprint of her struggle and resilience. But we are not solely defined by one lineage; we are the fusion of many.
On my maternal grandfathers side, strength took a different form. His family came from a small village on the outskirts of the Ukraine. They were peasant folk - in tune with nature, and keenly aware of their surroundings. they knew how to thrive in harsh climates, both geographical and political. Their fore-bearers were fierce, with Mongolian heritage, they had survived through many brutal challenges and were determined and proud.
I imagine my great-grandmother as a stoic woman. Having an energy that was palpable, she was not someone to be trifled with, and when she was angry it was like a storm had arrived and all fell away in her wake. She was capable and took care of her family - helping them to survive harsh winters, chopping wood, plucking chickens, knowing which herbs and greens to use when needed, she could read the land like a book. She was in tune with herself and went about her business without fuss.
She could read the signs - knowing which birds signalled death was coming, which sounds echoed the change of weather, which skies showed that colossal upheaval was near. She was superstitious and intuitive in the way that village folk are. And she was prepared to let her children go - to let them survive - when she knew that war was brewing.
My grandfather left his home in the Ukraine when World War 2 encroached on his family home. he trekked into the forest and did what was needed to make sure he made it out of the war alive. His family, however, was not spared the ravages of war. My great-grandmother knew, and she let him go. His escape ensured that our lineage carried on, and her sacrifice and strength courses like an underground stream in our veins, nourishing us so that we may be able to stand up and also make the necessary decisions when the time comes.
The Paternal Echo
The echoes of ancestry and our Madhya do not belong solely to our mothers.
My father's mother, Frances, was a kind woman. Always at church on Sundays - an integral part of her community - she was keenly family orientated and dedicated. It is through her that I got to meet my father (another story for another time). She cared deeply for my grandfather - a quiet man who worked hard for his country and for his family - mothered devotedly and raised independent children.
Having lived through the war, and coming from the North, she was a strong woman, virtually raising her 3 children on her own with a husband who worked long hours with little time at home, she was strong and capable, working as a secretary as well as maintaining her household, she was steady, and well liked by all.
She enjoyed a long and joyful life, passing peacefully in her sleep at 98 years old. Until her final days she remained engaged in the world, off to play bingo with friends, holding onto the threads of connection and laughter.
The Unfolding of Self
A weaving of these threads - the lives lived before mine - neatly wind themselves into coils that speak to my body. They tell my organs, my heart, my brain, my hormones, my DNA how to express, unfold, and transcribe.
Each part is drawn together, with my own free will imbuing its thoughts, feelings, and energy into the story that becomes, Rebecca.
As I walk though the stories of these magnificent women I can see where similarities lie, perhaps my ability to adapt, to be resilient, my inner strength and intuition, my ability to read the signs, my kindness and desire for connection and laughter are born from a cellular spark, passed down to me through the ages, simply microscopic quarks, waiting for activation, they were already there, not learned or imposed, or created by me, but inherent, and eternal.
As well I wonder, have my choices been solely my own, the men I chose, the way I relate to others, my relationship with money, my insecurities, fears, and shame, are they expressions of generational trauma, traits and whispers, finding their way to constantly tangle themselves up in the next familial line.
As I walk my own path, I must ask - Do we really ever have control or are we forever bound to the shadows of our ancestors?
And so our journey continues.
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