Gratitude (aka Ode to My Parents)
It is Thanksgiving weekend in Canada*, and I have been thinking a lot about all the things I am thankful for this year. My family always tops the list. My husband who is the calm to my storm. My two daughters whose bravery, empathy and sense of adventure never cease to amaze me. They have taught me the importance of loving myself and are my encouragement on my journey for continuous self-improvement.
Then there is my little brother. The one person in the world that I know has my back no matter what (ditto). My siblings-in-law who are not just family but friends. We have so much fun together. My in-laws who love me like their own. My extended family, the people with whom I share my roots, who are a part of my history.
Next up are my friends: my chosen family. The ones that love me for exactly who I am. That love my children like their own. That share in my victories and are by my side for the disappointments. In these last few months, I have been reminded how important these friends are in my life and how special our time is together.
But my deepest gratitude is reserved for my parents. Growing up, they were the “cool” parents. The parents we knew we could call when we were in trouble. We let us have parties at our house and they picked us up when we couldn’t get home on our own no matter what time it was. They were fun, but they never tried to be my friend. There were rules and they had expectations. It was those very rules and expectations that kept me from spiralling into alcoholism or worse when Emma died.
I have done a LOT of intensive therapy in the last 18 months. Through this work, I have gained a new appreciation for my parents. Nobody’s childhood is perfect, but I am so grateful to have been raised in a stable household by people who genuinely loved me. My parents gave me every opportunity they could — skiing, travel, a post-secondary education.
Neither of my parents had an easy childhood. Their stories are not mine to tell, but somewhere along the line, they decided that they would not repeat the experiences they had lived. Instead, my parents made the conscious decision to end the trauma that they experienced — not to repeat the cycle.
Now that I am a parent myself, I know how hard parenthood is and it makes me even more grateful for my Mom and Dad. I am thankful for their bravery, their love, their selflessness.
“Intergenerational trauma occurs when the descendant of someone who experienced traumatic, adverse events is presenting challenging emotional and behavioural reactions similar to their ancestor/relative. These reactions are passed down from one generation to the next, often in unspoken and deeply complex ways. Anyone can experience intergenerational trauma, however, people from equity-seeking groups may have more pronounced experiences.”
*NB: *Thanks to our colonial history, Thanksgiving is a complicated holiday. In Canada, Thanksgiving is a celebration of Samuel de Champlain historic feast with the Mi’kmaq in Port-Royal (now Nova Scotia) in 1406. Despite the fact that the French (let’s be honest all settlers) survived only in Canada because of Indigenous peoples, we know that they surely did not repay the favour. In fact, quite the opposite. Their colonization has resulted in hundreds of years of assimilationist policies aimed and eliminating the Indigenous population in Canada. So yeah, seems challenging to celebrate the holiday without at least acknowledging our colonial ghost in the closet.
