An Inheritance of Silence
On an heirloom of hushed tears, and rejecting this legacy for the next generation
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This essay is part of a month-long collaboration created by
at Carer Mentor. Thank you, Victoria, for inviting me to be one of 13 writers as part of this project! I take up the mantle from . At the bottom, you’ll find a list of all the pieces that have already been published as part of this anthology.One of
’s writing intensive exercises helped me write this essay.
2024
My daughter turns one. I cradle her sleeping form, whispering prayers over her little body.
From days wrapped around me in a sling to now crawling away from me, I knew the world awaiting her held cruelty as well as beauty. I pray when she one day learns this truth, she would not also learn to question her worth.
My tears come swift and unbidden, dripping off my chin into her hair. She twitches, sighs, and continues sleeping.
2023
“Wow I’ve never seen actual tears on a baby so young,” people remark.
Someone my mother’s age asks, “Is she autistic? She cries so much.”
I kiss her forehead. “It’s okay to cry,” I tell her.
When she wails, I comfort her. When she screams, I hold her closer. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’m here.”
2021
My son dies. A week later, my dad says I’m grieving for too long and need to come out of it.
I inherit private notes my son had written to himself. In one, he wrote:
“I can be loved. And upset. And angry. And feel hurt. And it’s ok. It’s ok. It’s ok. I can laugh. My Roo won’t let me go. Loves me.”
He had called me Roo, his safe place.
I think, I did something right.
2020
I watch the second line grow faint over days until it disappears. Crimson soaks through white panties, yet my mind denies the emptying of life from my body. I curl up in my chair and rock back and forth.
When the ultrasound technician tells me there’s no heartbeat, I nod, wipe up the gel with the towel she hands me, and walk out.
This scene repeats: once, twice, thrice more.
2000
My knee collides with the blacktop with the kind of recklessness children have when they don't yet know how to hold back their affections. I limp to the bathroom, mop up the blood with fumbling fingers, and wrap a wad of paper towels around it as a makeshift bandage.
Back in class, I try to ignore the dripping of blood-water after it soaks through the paper towels. The slow but steady trickle of liquid trails down my legs. “I’ll clean it up properly when I get home,” I think.
I don’t ask to be excused; I sit in class as blood stains my once-white socks red until the day ends and I limp home, in silence.
1995
“Don’t cry,” they say when they snap at me to stop.
“Don’t cry,” they say when they close the door as I wail.
So I learned. In the quiet, walls rise around my heart. My tears dry up.
If you liked this, you might also like
The Caring About Crying Anthology. We All Cry. You’re Not Alone.
Next up in the series:
This appears short and sweet BUT it actually packs a powerful heart-punch. Poignant, @Tiffany Chu . Thank you. xo
Tiffany, this is such a profoundly poignant, beautiful and also heartbreaking piece that expanded into a powerful experience of hope and rebirth by the end. It was especially impactful and moving with the reverse chronology perspective. While I have been only a daughter and not a mother (except to my own inner child), each vignette resonated so deeply with me, because they echoed with my own experiences or longings. My own childhood experiences with crying and tears have been that they were met with oblivion, ignorance or disregard, and as an adult, I realised that even though I had not entirely lost my ability to cry, I carried the wounds of not feeling able to rely or depend on anyone, and of generally feeling that my emotions and sensitivity were a source of inconvenience to others. In the journey of breaking my own generational cycles, it is so affirming and healing to read about how, as a mother, you broke this cycle to give your children the unconditional love that your inner child also needed. Sending you love, and thank you so much for sharing this with us.