Some True Words

 A friend posted this on Facebook, it's really true.

A wise friend said to me the worst times in a woman’s life

are when she was a teenager 

and when her daughter becomes a teenager.

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It has occurred to me today that Daya is perhaps the first person in 4 generations of my direct family to have a stable childhood.

Yes there are important things missing but she has had stability.
I have provided that to her by myself.

I don't know about anything in my family before my grandmothers.

My father knew about his side, I had to to a genealogy project in high school, but I don't have that information anymore and I don't remember it.  It was all people I don't know and never heard of before or since that project.

My maternal grandmother did not want to talk about it and I was asked after that event to never ask her again.

I don't know anything about my paternal grandmother except for when she was an adult.  

I was scared of her whenever I saw her as a young child.

So, my grandparents had it bad when they were kids, I know my maternal grandmother did, and I knew that even as a child.

My parents had it rough too. It was a bad scene on both sides.

My entire childhood was engulfed by everyone around me viciously fighting.

My parents did absolutely everything you are not supposed to do when getting a divorce and there are kids involved.  Every single thing.  And it never stopped. It lasted from before I started school through to my college graduation.

Even though I am divorced from Daya's father, and the absence of a father is significant, she never bonded with him so it is not so much a trauma as an absence.

But she has had stability.  

That much at least, I have done right, and I know it even if maybe she can't see it right now.