The Ones Who Came Before

I do not know all their names.

Not the maiden names.

Not the middle ones.

Not the names they whispered to themselves

when no one was listening.

But I know their hands.

I know the shape of sacrifice.

I know the silence they learned to survive in.

I know what it is

to carry more than you can say

and still set the table

and braid the hair

and keep the house from falling in.

They were not all gentle.

They were not all healed.

But they kept going.

And somehow

so did we.

I think of them sometimes

when I am standing at the sink,

worn down to the bone,

and still reaching for one more thing to clean.

One more thing to hold.

I wonder who they cried to.

If they ever did.

They loved in the ways they could.

Held what they could hold.

Hid what they could not.

Passed it down in the fold of the quilt,

in the recipe without measurements,

in the glance that said

you just do what needs doing.

I don’t know their stories in full.

Just the shape of them.

The echo.

The hum.

But still

I light a candle for them in my chest.

For what they gave

and what they never got.

For what they held

so I wouldn’t have to.

For what they handed me

without knowing

if I’d make it any further than they did.

I carry them.

Not all the weight.

But the knowing.

And in the quietest places of me,

I tell them

you can rest now.

I remember.

I remember.

I remember.

The Quiet Kind of Strong is a series of seven on inheritance, endurance, and the women who came before. The other parts live in the Still June archive.