STORY

#Your Story Matters

Word Prompt: Story

Day 2 #10daywritingchallenge

My life story has been a mystery. From sketchy details to flat out lies, all it shrouded in shame. The truth has been hidden, until now.  

My Story is still unfolding, perhaps yours is too. Like missing pieces of an intricate puzzle, what seemed lost is now being unearthed.  

My mom who raised me chose this moment of time to reveal even more of my story that has been buried, buried deep within her soul. It’s been forty years of carrying this loaded deck of lies. She did the best she could with what she had been given. She did the best she could, because she didn’t have the support of her family.

Some of them tried to rewrite my story, but it isn’t theirs to tell.  

She’s ninety-six years old now. Since her Lewy Body Dementia diagnoses, she seems far less restrained, there’s no filter, even though some moments of time are far more lucid than others. Perhaps, mom senses that she needs to be set free…Free from being the harbinger of secrets and lies.

Maybe this disease has made her realize that time is of the essence and all of our stories matter, greatly.  She told me that whatever I ask (of my story, and the stories of others), she will freely reveal.

I am certain all this revelation has been cathartic.

I believe that she was too afraid to tell the truth. I believe she felt the gravity of condemnation piled so deeply upon her, from members of our family. Shame like heaping coals, weighted, layers and layers of shameful judgment, pride and self-righteousness is the generational curse.

Where do you begin to tell the story?

My story is mine to tell, not some watered-down version of half-truths told by people peeking out from the splintered wood of shameful closets filled with skeletons.

My story is mine for the telling.

My story matters and yours does too. May our truths set us all free.