i really wanted a picture of harrison passing the baton to one of his teammates for this.....for obvious reasons (ahem, the title)...and didn't have one that was clear enough to use......so, i decided this picture would work...what it says to me is....that at the end of the day...as in THE END OF MY DAYS, what will i have passed on to my children? i have been contemplating this for a while.  a long time, actually.  i even thought about writing about it before--i have a draft of a post from 2 years ago.

last night it became clear...well more clear.  more like a little more mud removed from the screen.

i have LONG beaten myself up for the fact that i have, in many ways, repeated and passed on unhealthy and even abusive ways of relating to my children/husband/family/friends.  i can see so many ways i have failed to take a stand for what is right along the years.

i see so many other 'healthy' families and want that so badly for me and mine.  i see families that have (what seems to me) to have a deep connectedness, all willing and working on healthy conflict resolution, doing life together......i see families that have grandparents completely involved in their grandchildren's lives.  i see divorced families working things out peaceably.

i want so much more for my children.

don't we all?????

i heard a story last night from a dad...a man who's dad came from horrible abuse.  a dad who (from my view) was JUST surviving his childhood.  this younger man told of the horror stories his dad told him about how he grew up.  the anger, the rage, the abuse.  The speaker told of how he had learned to not look at what his dad DIDN'T do for him and look at what his dad DIDN'T pass on to him.  He learned to not focus on the times he felt he missed with his dad, because his dad just didn't know how to do those kinds of things....what he chose to focus on was how his dad STOPPED the horrid from being passed on and down the line.

this story gave me SUCH HOPE.  i have had such a longing to know i am doing better for my children than i had done for me.  and with that story last night, i saw that i have done that--that i am doing that.

i may not be taking my children as far as i wanted to...and yes, there is still time.  but to know that they will take the baton and go further with their family than i did....and their children will go even further...away from the devastation, the neglect and abuse  i grew up in and live a freer life from the beginning.