Today is a hard day for me and for my family. Today marks the day my aunt was born. My Nonna had her one and only baby girl today and she was radiant. She was the oldest of herself and three brothers; born of an incredibly resilient immigrant mother and a traditional military father. Her name was Nancy. Nancy died in the room upstairs of her childhood home; we lost her to lung cancer. She was 16. My father refuses to speak about his sister but every year he texts me a reminder that it is her birthday even though I never got the pleasure to meet her. But she haunts the home.

I know Nancy liked cards. More than once I have had my deck mysteriously moved when no one else is in the house. Growing up with trauma brain, I memorized the gait and sound of everyone’s steps in the home, whether visiting or permanent. Every night, there was a light shuffling sound of feet that would patrol the steps. Up and down and up and down the hall toward the back bedrooms, the one on the right being her old room. I opened the door to peer outside into the hall so many times with no one there. As soon as I closed the door, the steps would start again. Up and down and up and down. As much as it frightened me, it gave me comfort. I knew I was never alone.

Today is my mothers birthday. The day my grandmother gave birth to her firstborn; her one and only daughter. The daughter of a proud military father and an elegant and discerning mother. We don’t speak to her. My grandmother and grandfather suffered a lifetime of being taken advantage of and abused by my mother. When my grandfather passed, my grandmother couldn’t take it anymore alone. After suffering at the hands of her addiction until I was 9 and then realizing when I was 14 that unfortunately, even when sober she was the same savage in a slightly better skin, I left. I don’t think she is unredeemable. In fact, I still love her beyond words. But you cant help a person who is unwilling to help themselves. And so, she still haunts her mother and I.

I see her in the way I smile and move my hands. We have the same body type and our humor is similar. We cook the same way, with soul and a bit of dance. I owe part of my flair for spunk and love for multicolored hair to her. And I’ve wanted to hate her; for the things she did to me and the way she made me grow up when I was still a child. Her voice is the voice that drags me down and tells me I am unworthy in the back of my head. I am afraid to have my own children with the anxious fear of being anything like her. But hating her would mean hating me. So I forgave her instead. But I still haven’t found the courage to face her yet. So I continue to be haunted by her.

Today is a reminder of one mothers loss of a daughter and the other daughter being lost to her mother. Hauntings by both the living and the dead. It is a wretched irony. It is not an easy place to be; at the end of this lineage of sorrowful, hurt women. But I think that is part of the reason why we came as a pair; my twin sister and I. Through my relationship with my twin and perhaps future daughter, I hope to cultivate healing rather than harm, understanding rather than judgement, and love rather than hate. For all hurt mothers and daughters out there, I see you and I hear you.

Love, Bug

Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it forgoes revenge, and dares to forgive an injury. -Edwin Hubbell Chapin