At one point in time, a part of ourselves was carried inside our maternal grandmother.
When a female baby is forming inside her mother, she is already carrying all of the eggs she will have in her lifetime. One of those eggs contained genetic material that eventually became a part of us. Our grandmother carried a part of us, too.
Many parts of our lives begin long before we do. And this is true beyond eggs and DNA. Our great-grandparents, grandparents, or parents settled somewhere, and that place shaped our lives, allowing us to become who we are in a particular way that would not have been the case otherwise. Someone’s family moved next door, and that child became our best friend. We started that job. We picked up the phone. We boarded that plane. We met people we loved, and we formed families, creating more particular forces that will shape other people, too — those born into our lives and those we encounter.
Our lives have gifts attached to them that were decades in the making, long before we knew them or could share them.
I also love what author Linda Hogan writes:
Suddenly, all my ancestors are behind me.
“Be still,” they say.
“Watch and listen.
You are the result of the love of thousands.”
That’s true.
We are also born of the struggles of thousands. The visioning of thousands. The hopes of thousands. The failures of thousands. The desires of thousands.
We are who we are in and through one another.
—Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 