In a journey through inherited wounds, Myka unravels the heartbreak buried in her family’s past. With wit, raw honesty, and a touch of irony, she faces her mother and grandmother’s stories, piecing together how invisible scars shaped them all. Through laughter, tears, and tough conversations, she questions if healing can finally break the cycle.
I remember the first time my mother cried about her mother. It was like watching a flood spill over a dam, only I didn’t know where the dam was or why it was holding so much water in the first place. I was seven, probably upset over some schoolyard squabble, and Mum just... burst. A long, strange, stream of words tumbled out—something about “history repeating itself,” and “pain that wasn’t even hers to carry.” It made absolutely no sense to me, but then, it would take another twenty years of therapy, arguments, and terribly revealing family dinners to begin piecing it all together.
It turns out, there is science behind it, too. Studies show that trauma can indeed be passed down through generations. Apparently, children of Holocaust survivors carry the trauma of their parents at a cellular level, and research from the CDC suggests that childhood trauma has long-lasting effects on mental and physical health. But none of this would hit home until I realised the depth of my family’s inheritance: a hefty dose of unhealed grief, carried like a secret heirloom from one generation to the next.
So here I am, standing at the edge of my own dam, staring at the cracks, asking myself if I am about to break too.
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Myka, my slightly neurotic, endlessly curious self, had always sensed something wasn’t quite right in our family. Mum was a puzzle: all sharp edges and missing pieces. And my grandmother, well, she was another layer of complication entirely—like one of those vintage wardrobes that’s more dust than wood but too precious to let go of.
My mother, Lou, was petite but imposing, the kind of woman whose presence filled a room before she even said a word. She had dark, almost midnight-black hair, which she wore up in a chignon. And she had the sharpest eyes I’d ever seen, like twin hawks scanning for the slightest trace of weakness. “Hawks don’t get weepy,” she’d say with a wry smile, a little too tightly.
Lou could hold a grudge longer than most people could remember what it was about. I think that’s partly why she clung to her own mother’s failures so desperately. Grandma Joy, for all her whimsical quirks, was a deep well of unresolved sadness. A striking woman in her youth, she was now wiry and stiff, like old vines twisted into the shape of a person, her once brilliant red hair turned a faint copper. She spoke in half-riddles and her memories seemed shrouded in some invisible fog. Her stories were mostly allegories, steeped in metaphors and sad, poetic anecdotes that only half-made sense.
When I finally asked Grandma about her childhood, I was met with a series of cryptic answers and stories of a father who “left when the light turned green” and a mother who “carried stones in her pockets to keep her down to earth.” None of this clarified anything, but in the peculiar language of trauma, it spoke volumes.
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Mum would say, “It is in the blood, Myka. You can’t just wish it away.” I started to understand what she meant the day I finally dared to read a bit of history for myself.
Researchers at the University of Zurich recently found that trauma affects not only the mental but also the physical health of descendants, impacting stress hormone regulation and even immunity. There was an almost biological script woven into our DNA, one I had unwittingly learned by heart, right down to the final verse.
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At some point, I’d had enough of unanswered questions. I sat Mum down one evening with a pot of chamomile tea, the ‘good’ kind she saves for crises. I told her, plainly, that I wanted answers.
“Mum, I need to understand what’s actually happened here. Why do I feel like I’ve been tiptoeing around ghosts?”
“Because we all are, Myka,” she replied, barely looking up. “Grandma Joy never dealt with her wounds, so she passed them to me. And me… I never wanted to pass them to you, but life doesn’t exactly give you that choice, does it?”
Lou didn’t cry much, but her voice cracked like an old record, just for a second. And in that second, I saw a woman more vulnerable than I had ever known her to be—a woman who, despite all her fierce bravado, was just another link in the chain.
“But that’s not fair,” I countered, anger bubbling up. “Why should I have to live with the weight of things that happened before I was even born?”
She paused, taking a long, measured breath. “Life isn’t fair, Myka. But you can decide if you want to keep carrying the weight, or let it go.”
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It was around that time I met Danny. Danny was… well, if you can imagine sunshine in human form, that would just about cover it. Six feet of easy-going, warm-hearted charm, Danny could get anyone laughing in under five minutes. His curly auburn hair was perpetually tousled, his hazel eyes always alight with some hidden mischief. He had a way of making me feel like maybe, just maybe, I didn’t have to be so heavy all the time.
Danny grew up with what he called a “lopsided but lovable family.” His mother was a vivacious Italian who kissed everyone twice, and his father was a retired musician who still performed jazz standards in their living room every Thursday night. It was the polar opposite of my experience. I found myself opening up to him about things I’d barely even dared to say to myself.
One night, after listening to another of my rants about the inherited sadness I couldn’t quite escape, he held my hand and said, “You know, Myka, maybe it is not about escaping. Maybe it is about learning to live with it, like an old song you don’t love but know by heart.”
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Slowly, I started asking my family questions with a new sense of purpose. Not in the desperate, wounded way I’d done before, but with a curiosity that felt almost… hopeful. I wanted to know who Joy was before she was a grandmother, who Lou was before she became a mother. And I wanted to know if, in some way, I could give their stories a better ending.
I’d read that writing out one’s trauma could be healing, so I bought myself a second-hand typewriter and started crafting the life of “Evelyn,” an imaginary grandmother who lived the life I wished Joy had. Evelyn had a torrid love affair with a poet, traveled to the Italian countryside, and built a life free from bitterness and regret. Each word felt like a small rebellion, a stitch in a tapestry that might one day cover the holes of the past.
One afternoon, as I tapped away at my fantasy grandmother’s life, Grandma Joy stumbled in. She didn’t say a word, just took a seat and watched me. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she spoke.
“You know, Myka, I had dreams too. Just never enough courage to chase them.”
And in that confession, I felt something shift. For the first time, I saw her as more than just the shadow in our family story. She was a woman who, like me, had wanted something more but had settled for survival.
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Now, I am no miracle worker, and I’m still piecing together the mess I inherited. But maybe, just maybe, awareness is the first step. I will carry parts of Joy and Lou with me forever, but I no longer feel like I’m doomed to repeat their choices. Instead, I am learning to make my own.
I won’t lie—sometimes it feels like trying to walk with invisible weights around my ankles. But I hold onto Danny’s words: It’s not about escaping. It’s about learning to live, to dance even, with those weights. And who knows? One day, I might even make them look graceful.
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Author:
Tushar Mangl, Energy Healer, Counsellor, and Author of The Avenging Act, writes on personal finance, Vastu, mental health, food, leisure, and creating a greener society. Speaker and author of Hey Honey Bunch, Ardika, and I Will Do It.
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