I made the collage at the top about 8 years ago.
In the photo is my grandpa and great-grandpa.
The caption says :
Does putting wings on him now help my heart pretend he was gentler then?
The middle collage was made yesterday.
In the photo is my mom and her dad...my grandpa...the little boy in the first collage.
The words: She decided it was safe to wear her pink dress of healing.
The photo - me and my mom.
This was taken a few weeks ago. We are sitting in the middle of the Owens Valley on a cold morning.
So, to answer the question in the first collage regarding my great-grandpa...the answer is no.
He was not a gentle man and I can't pretend he was.
Generational healing.
I can choose to be more gentle now.
hi jenny stevning . . . i spent a year at the age of thirty-three unpacking the previous three generation's presence in my life as i was living it. not getting rid of it but becoming aware of it and the echoes through my own life. some echoes are still there but much of the damage is visible to me and not being repeated.
ReplyDeleteone bit of that work involved not putting people onto pedestals that should accrue to their role like your great grandpa - he should have been a kind and gentle man right? maybe not! but we can learn about that and then choose to not be any of those things ourselves. these are extraordinary collages jenny. thanks for sharing them hee. steven
Families are odd and beautiful creatures. Yes?
ReplyDeleteWhat started this years ago was the idea that all we can really leave on this earth is love - stories of love with the people left behind. Regarding my great-granfather...he may have left some but they were never told to me...only stories of anger, destruction and/or violence. Watching the generations evolve away from that is very healing.
Thanks, Steven.
I noticed a few years after my mom and dad's passing that all I wanted to keep were things of beauty that they made: photos, artwork and the like. The rest of it was thrown away or sold.
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