Generational Curses

I had a dream in 2022 that I was in this house that wasn’t mine (somehow it never is) and I was standing at the front door inside. Before leaving to wherever I was going, I felt the urge to look back towards the back door which could be seen from across the unimpressive, bare living room (the home wasn’t very big) with the shabby forest green carpet. I didn’t turn into a pillar of salt like I feared, but as I peered across the small stretch of room without furniture, I could see a pestilence trying to make its way through the back door and into the even less impressive kitchen. Swarms of all different types of insects by the bucket full were crawling and flying their way in. I looked down and saw snakes and scorpions and frogs slithering and hopping and creeping along the kitchen floor towards me. The lot was making its way fast. It was the epitome of every hellacious nightmare you’ve ever seen in a horror film, because there was a darkness, a shroud trying to make its way in also.

Though this was where I had awakened at the start of this seemingly nightmare, somehow I knew that my daughters were outside playing. I darted across the room towards the lot of my fear, leaping over them as swiftly as the next Olympian long-jumper and zipped out the backdoor like a pet who’s just discovered they have a doggy door. Charlotte and Grace were outside alright, in the midst of what seemed to be a blanket of flying…well…EVERYTHING. From locusts to gnats, they were EVERYWHERE. You couldn’t even open your mouth to speak let alone scream. And you better not scream, or get a mouthful of unwanted crunchy protein. I wondered if the girls were afraid, but they stood there amongst the buzzing and the zapping noises totally unbothered and completely unscathed. In fact, they stood there so nonchalantly, talking amongst themselves and playing old school hand games, that one might think they were unaware there were any bugs at all. Not one creepy crawly even so much as fluttered in their faces or stung them or ANYTHING.

As usual when I woke up I rushed to look up the spiritual meaning of such a vision, but could only find the common convoluted theories that always come circling back around to either subconscious, specious meanings or diverting to astrology. I later shared the dream with an old dear friend who was very spiritually in tune. She said it so simply and plainly that it made so much sense; I was almost mad that I didn’t think of that myself. She said that it was sin trying to find its way into my life still, but because it was coming through the back door, it was trying to make its way in through my lineage like sin being passed down like cursed heirlooms. She further elaborated that if it had been coming through the front passage, it would mean it was outright sin I was committing knowingly, but still, I needed to pray and bind and rebuke. So I did. What brought me immense peace was that my daughters did not seem to be affected by this generational curse.

I tried to figure out why God would only show me my girls and not Sonny? Was he still subject to the family oppression? Would the family curse continue with my son? If so, would he be the one to break it? Was it something that only pertained to the women in our family? I knew God would reveal it in due time.

The following year Juan and I faced severe financial and marital struggles. Our rent had risen to astronomical heights not worthy of the cost for such a tiny place we had been cramped in the past three years that was now becoming infested with roaches that looked like they belonged in the Amazon.

(pestilence)

One of our cars was repossessed. Sonny couldn’t take the pressure living with us anymore and decided to move back with his dad in Vegas. We were always fighting and the fights were getting progressively worse. We had almost separated once and I had even entertained the possibility of an affair with one of my college professors. Instead of divorce which had come up a few times, I decided to quit school and give Juan a chance to pursue his own dreams for once since he had always supported mine. I was surprised to find out that he had always dreamed of being in the military. I, too, dreamed of being a soldier once upon a time and decided it would be great for us, I could live vicariously through him while continuing to raise the girls and support him in everything.

Around this same time, I began talking to my mother again, a very fragile relationship indeed. I had recently heard that Uncle Joe’s mother had passed away and it got me thinking about how much longer I may have my own in my life. The average life expectancy on our side of the family wasn’t much past 60. In fact, we were lucky to make it to 60 due to our genetic predispositions and the lack of taking good care of oneself with a good diet and exercise. I had already taken my health into my own hands and thought I could be a good inspiration to my mom to get healthy before it was too late. Trying to let go of resentment, I corresponded with her daily as the summer approached and Juan and I prepared to launch his career in the army. But like always, my mother’s pushiness and constant queries into my personal life began to weigh on me, and like always, I began to recoil, keeping my answers short and kurt.

One day, on a bad day, I became so overwhelmed by everything going on that I was unable to keep up the charade of being patient with R***** W***. The best I could do was ignore her constant texting. It was too much to look at my phone and see what felt like feigned love and admiration for me. When I knew that the last time I had heard my mother’s voice, it was in a voicemail coaxing me to kill myself. All during a very dark time of losing one of my brothers to a fentanyl overdose. Yes, for me, it has always poured when it’s rained. I have never known anything different. What has always given me encouragement to keep pressing is knowing that the climate will be just as strong when it is blessings being poured out instead of trials. And when she wouldn’t take my silence as the kindness it was, and began laying on the guilt trips thick, I snapped. And like I always did, I brought up as many painful memories that I could in one breath as I mouthed the words, my fingers barely able to keep up typing every word painted vividly with disdain.

It was when she said, “It’s okay Jessica. Hurt people hurt people,” I tore into her like a pair of new kitchen shears.

“Oh yeah, mom? Hurt people hurt people, huh? Well then who hurt you? I know it wasn’t my grandmother, she was a saint! So what was it, huh? Who?! WHO?!” I was not prepared for her answer.

“Your grandfather. My dad used to take me out on special little outings when I was younger than four. Had to be because he was gone by the time I turned four. He wouldn’t take my brothers. Just me. He would get naked with me and make me touch him and do things to him. I knew I didn’t want to but I just wanted to make him happy. I was very angry for a very long time. Those things came out when I was parenting you and I feel terrible. There’s nothing I can do to change that now but all I can do is try to do better now.”

This was it! This was the generational curse coming down the lineage and permeating the parentage. This was what my girls would be unharmed and untouched by, thank God, because here, it was about to be broken! You can’t imagine the amount of tears overflowing. It was like I could hear every bad memory, every past abuse, clicking into place and making so much sense in this moment. But I had questions. I was still so skeptical.

“What did grandma do? Is that why they divorced? I know if she had known, she’d have done more than just leave him, she’d have killed him!!”

“I never told her,” my mother said in the text thread of a lifetime. My knees gave right where I stood and I let myself fall on my bed in a rushing wave of tears. I was going to be late to something, so all I could say ever so gently in this very precious moment, through my unstoppable tears…

“My dearest darling,” I said, “I am so very deeply sorry that this happened to you and you had to face this for so long all by yourself. A weight I cannot imagine let alone bear. It is with much regret right now that I have to cut this short, but I am thinking about you and praying for you so hard. We will most definitely be talking later. We will have our time. I love you so very very much, dear heart.”

I had never spoken to my mother in that fashion before. Nor with as much sincerity. My vitriol had been replaced with profound compassion. I knew right then and there that I could never leave my mother alone again. I knew this would have its own challenges along the way, but I was determined to take back what the devil had stolen from us before I was even born!