The Lessons We Inherit

 Today my mother turns ninety. It’s a bittersweet milestone, one marked by both gratitude and sorrow. Twenty-five years ago, my father passed away, and ever since, her life has been a slow unraveling. She has her mind completely, but her body has betrayed her. She can’t scratch an itch, rub lotion onto her dry skin, or lift herself up from a chair. She lives inside a body that will not cooperate, trapped in a kind of personal hell, aware, alert, and powerless.

It’s painful to witness. She knows too that she created much of this outcome through years of choices that didn’t nurture her health or her spirit. That knowledge torments her. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be so aware and yet so stuck, waiting for release, knowing that the freedom you seek can only come through death.

I’ve spent my whole life learning from my mother, not just from her strength but from her mistakes. Watching her taught me early that taking care of the body matters deeply, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve realized the mind is just as vital, if not more. Our thoughts shape our reality. Where our focus goes, our energy follows. And over time, our energy becomes the story of our lives.

My father’s story is different, but it left its mark on me too. He was severely abused as a child, yet he chose not to pass that pain down. He broke a cycle that could have easily continued and in doing so gave me one of the greatest gifts a parent can offer: safety. His ability to love despite what he endured still humbles me.

I’ve been reflecting lately on how our parents’ lives become maps, not directions we must follow, but roads that warn us of where not to go. I’ve made my own mistakes too. I stayed too long in something that wasn’t real, a relationship that once felt like friendship, love, and partnership all in one, but turned out to be an illusion. I let myself lean on someone I shouldn’t have, and I swore long ago I’d never do that, because I saw how hard dependence made things for my mother when my father died. But I did, and I forgive myself for that.

The truth is, the people we become are shaped by what we choose to learn from what we’ve lived through. We can let pain harden us, or we can let it teach us compassion. We can stay trapped in our old stories, or we can use them as kindling for something new.

As I look at my mother now, ninety years on this earth, her mind sharp as ever, I can’t help but think how powerful our choices are. They don’t just shape our lives. They shape our endings.

I don’t know what my mother thinks about when she’s lying there, unable to move, trapped inside the body she neglected for too long. But I know what I think: that I want to live while I’m alive. I want to care for my body, yes, but also guard my mind, tend to my thoughts, and never let bitterness be my companion.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from both of my parents, it’s this: we are the sum of what we choose to heal. And healing, unlike time, is always in our hands.