She had such audacious dreams. She had grandiose visions of how she wanted to change the world and who she wanted to be… oh how she longed for a different world. A world of light and joy and happiness. She wanted a world of resilience and kindness and respect. She wanted to see her children and grandchildren change the world, but now she’ll never get to see that.

She won’t get to see her grandchildren grow up and become extraordinary adults, at least not in a way we can comprehend.

My mom [and dad] overcame incommunicable challenges and created a loving home for her children. Motherhood came naturally to her… sometimes difficult origin families make it blatantly obvious of what not to perpetuate in the family one creates, and so she used the judgement and neglect she felt from her childhood to ensure her children would be nurtured and protected. But, of course, just because one doesn’t want to be like his or her parents’ doesn’t mean that one will break all of the cycles.

Post-traumatic growth and healing can only heal as much as one is willing to acknowledge, work though, and admit pain to empathetic witnesses. That which is dismissed, ignored, rejected, and hidden festers into gaping wounds that even stitches can hardly mitigate.

Again, one’s suicide is no other’s fault: another’s actions undoubtedly wound us, but it’s one’s inability to tend to his or her wounds that poisons them and leads to mental sepsis.

My mother made strides in breaking the cycles her origin family perpetuates, but she created a world of love shrouded in subliminal messages longing for death. She bought into Christian escapism — the unhealthy longing for a better world that influences one to dread the beauty of his or her one life. Again, I remind that Jesus came to heal. He came to heal, that people would continue healing and teaching people to heal one another. The New Testament word “salvation,” means healing… imagine a world where “go and make disciples… teaching them to observe everything [Jesus] commanded” meant go, love others and provide healing to the orphan, widow, alien, and hurting instead of propagating shame, judgement, and an unobtainable afterlife. How different this would be if we simply saw each other and supported one another in our pain and suffering.

With love, she healed much. She instilled safety, security, and as much stability as was within her power into her family’s life despite the model she revived from her family and despite her youth. My siblings and I did not, have not, and do not question our parents’ love for us and their awe-inspiring ability to raise a family rooted in fierce love for one another. They modeled this in their marriage and in how they valued our family. Mom contributed to grand things, but the avoidance of her own pain harmed her and harmed each of us in return.

Unhealed trauma always creates casualties. Friendly fire still wounds. It’s our responsibility to heal from our wounds both for our own healing, vitality, and happiness, and so that we do not perpetuate pain to those around us.

My parents worked so, so, so hard for my siblings and I to have a better childhood than theirs. They partnered and built a marriage of love, trust, and kindness that we admired our whole lives. They built a tight-knit family — even when trauma and brokenness and hardship entered our home, we rally together with love and support for one another. Our family has been our biggest strength, challenge, disappointment, and comfort.

Mom could have lived another 45 years, nearly doubling her lifetime. In that timespan, she had the potential to witness six generations of healing and growth that she started. Instead, she succumbed to her unhealed wounds.

Her tragic ending inflicted obvious trauma, but it does not negate the positive changes she made for our lives. I am committed to healing and to demonstrating what healthy grief looks like because of the work that my mother began and because of the her unfinished work.

I am committed to treating others with kindness, to enforcing boundaries, to caring for and protecting myself and my family because of how she did and didn’t do these things.

I am committed to my family because she was deeply committed to us, and she loved us deeply despite of the many demons she faced.

She was beautiful in every way. She should have stayed, healed, and witnessed the growth of the beautiful family she created. Her life had so much potential — our lives had so much potential. Her dazzling dreams could have come true, and some of them will still come true, but she will no longer be part of those dreams maturing.

I wish she could have lived to see her efforts bloom into glorious realities. She would have loved that.