Grief in Generations: What Our Mothers Never Got to Say

Our mothers were not taught the language of softness.

They were taught to survive.
To withhold.
To keep quiet until their throats forgot the shape of want.

They learned that dreams are dangerous things — they make women leave, they make women fight, they make women bleed.

So they buried theirs. And when they had daughters, they buried ours too — thinking they were saving us from the same fire.

But grief is a tricky thing. It doesn’t die when silenced. It grows teeth and passes itself down in the ways we flinch when we’re praised, or apologize for speaking, or feel guilty for wanting more.

Our mothers did not mean to wound us. They were just following the script. And for years, we played the same part.

But we are rewriting the lines now.

We are letting ourselves want.
We are naming the griefs that were never allowed to be said aloud.
We are becoming the women our mothers never got to be —
even if it breaks their hearts to watch us fly.