Ancestral Echoes

In my grandmother's hands

I see mapping of survival

Calluses like topographical memories

Each line a story of crossing oceans

Of holding impossible dreams

My spine—

A column of inherited resilience

Vertebrae stacked with whispered instructions

From women who bent

But never broke

Blood carries more than DNA

It carries:

- Unspoken languages

- Forgotten lullabies

- Resistance written in cellular memory

My mother's silence

Is not emptiness

But a library of unwritten histories

Volumes of strength compressed

Into single breaths

I am the continuation

Of conversations started centuries ago

A living translation

Of migrations and miracles

When I stand

I stand with:

- Grandmothers who survived famines

- Aunts who crossed borders

- Mothers who reimagined possibility

My body—

A living archive

My breath—

Continuing dialogue

My existence—

Profound rebellion

Inheritance is not just blood

But the courage to remember

The wisdom to transform

The grace to continue