There's a photo that’s fascinated me since the first time I saw it. It's of my mom on her fourth birthday, which I know because of the inscription on the back. She’s nuzzling her own mother, both of them seated on the stage of a sixties-era venue, and my grandmother is gazing into the distance with a smile. It’s a very sweet moment. It’s also a very strange photo for me, because I never knew them like this. The relationship I knew of my mom and her mom was one of seething anger (my grandma’s) and constant hurt and defensiveness (my mom’s.) Theirs was a pain that began long before I arrived, but that cast a shadow over my childhood, and everything in my mother’s life.
The Sacred: How Time Travelling Can Show Us What We Already Have to Be Grateful For
It can be a terrifying to realize that holding onto the things we love is like grasping water that just keeps running through our hands – fruitless. They will change, and eventually all of it will go.
But this doesn’t have to strike us with fear of what we’ll lose – instead it can be this insanely profound gift.
Because how holy and sacred is all this stuff we actually have today, right?