The women in my bloodline

Part 1 (set the scene)

When I was a little girl, I remember pure joy in my mother. I came from a country family that loved to party, and my mother and I were always there laughing, dancing, and having a ball. My mother was a dresser, always stylish, and sometimes she even dressed us alike. She’d hop in the car without hesitation, just the two of us, and take off on a shopping trip anywhere from our town all the way to Atlanta, Georgia. Back-to-school season was always an event, a reason for another road trip.

Before I was born, my mother married my brother’s father. When my brother was still young, they eventually split, and my mother moved from McKenney, Virginia to Petersburg, Virginia with her siblings, cousins, and their children. Knowing myself and hearing stories about my grandmother, I can imagine that move must have felt like a bold step forward for my mother, and I’m sure it was.

One day, my mom and her sister packed up their kids and their bags in the middle of the day and left behind the lives that had burdened them. Without a word to anyone, they decided to leave their marriages and start over. The strength and confidence they had in themselves set them on a fresh journey, one that meant leaving behind men who had promised them the world but failed to keep their word.

What you have to understand about my mother and her siblings is that they were born to a woman, my grandmother whose spirit was too big for the small world she came from. With a burning desire for more, she left for New York the first chance she got, chasing her dream life. While some of her children spent a little time living with her in the big city, most of their lives were spent back home in Virginia without her.

There were five of them: four daughters and one son, each with their own version of that absence. One of them never got to be raised by her at all. So these women, these four sisters and one brother, grew up learning how to navigate life without their mother’s presence. And their mother, that same country girl in the big city, was searching too: for love, for family, for belonging.

So when my mother and my aunt made the choice to leave their marriages, they were really giving themselves another chance, a shot at building a new life and restacking all the chips that had fallen. They did it together, full of hope and determination. But what they couldn’t have known was that the broken desires, hidden resentments, and empty spaces left burning inside them would slowly resurface and, in time, begin to pull everything apart.