I Am My Own Legacy

A couple of days ago I was working in a coffee shop when I met a man. One of those chance meetings that isn’t really chance.

We bonded over The Four Agreements, a book that always seems to find me when I’m on the verge of remembering something deeper.

He asked me,

“Is your shadow from your dad’s wound?”

Because his came from his mom’s.

He told me he kept dating his mother,

looking for her in every woman.

I smiled. Not because I didn’t understand,

but because I did.

And yet,

That wasn’t my story.

You see, I never had a father. But I never had a father wound.

Because I had a grandfather.

A divine man.

One who read more books than most people breathe.

One who believed in me more than life itself.

He funded my dreams at age six and never asked me to shrink to be loved.

How could I ever settle after being raised by such royalty?

And though I never had a mother in the traditional sense,

I wasn’t motherless.

There was another, a woman who never left,

who lived just upstairs,

who was kindness incarnate.

She wasn’t mine by blood, but she mothered me with the kind of presence that changes timelines.

She lit up every room.

When she passed, the world got dimmer.

My aunt Pilar. 

So no, I didn’t have a mother wound either.

But I did have a wound.

My grandmother.

She wasn’t evil. She was hurting.

Born into a world that clipped her wings

before she even knew she had them.

Her pain spilled over and soaked the roots of our family tree.

Generational trauma dressed as control,

as silence,

as the deadly doctrine of “what will people say?”

When I tried to tell the truth,

they called me crazy.

A villain.

A betrayer.

I quote " a being without identity."

But I spoke with love.

With every ounce of it.

Because silence never saved us.

It only prolonged the storm.

So on this birthday,

I say thank you.

To the ones who raised me.

To the ones who hurt me.

To the ones who stayed,

and the ones who left.

To my shadow,

and to the light that made it visible.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, breath.

Thank you, books.

Thank you, animals.

Thank you, nature.

Thank you, Jessie Reyez and fam

for believing in me,

for holding me through the chaos of healing.

You were a lifeline.

You helped save my life.

Jessie, thank you for showing me what love truly is. 

Thank you to every single person who entered my life to teach me something, because none of it was random.

We are all here for a reason.

If we’re brave enough to awaken and remember it.

I release the past with grace. 

I build my present with love.

I trust the future with open hands. 

To my little girl:

I’m here now.

You are safe now. 

You’re not alone.

We got this.

Happy birthday, little Andy.

You are your own legacy.🫀