All Quotes By Tag: Daughters

“You will always be my teachers, just as much or more than I am yours. Do not think – nor let anyone convince you – that because of your age or your lack of experience that you do not hold wisdom beyond comprehension. You are wise enough to change the entire world in this movement, right now. Just as you are.”

“You will quite likely encounter the notion that we create our own reality. This can be an empowering idea and also true is so many ways. But it is also entitled and arrogant and can quickly move into a dangerous form of gaslighting. When this happens it is an act of shaming and a violence done. Because fucked up things happen. Fucked up and violent things. And to say that we create the entirely of our own realities is a way this world will have people- especially marginalized groups of people – hold responsibility for the circumstances in which they were without power. Guard yourself against perpetuating this, and hold yourself tenderly and solidly if it is ever pushed upon you.”

“You own your body. You own your body. You own your body. Your center and your edges are yours and yours alone. In this world – this world of rape culture of ingrained misogyny and violence done against girls and women – you will encounter and absorb messages your entire life that place you on trial for the crime of existing as female in this world. That will question your right to wear or speak or move through the world in the way that you do. That will seek to harm you in ways large and small. As a woman, you will hold stories that sometimes feel too painful to hold. As your mother, that brings me to my knees. I grant you the strength to know that this too, you will survive. I promise you I will protect you with every ounce of life in my body. And where I cannot protect you from this world, I will love you inside of it – fierce and holy and precious beyond all knowing.”

“You hold the collective story of all women in your body. The muscle memory of generations past. This is your legacy, but it is not a prediction of your reality or your future. The difference is both delicate and profound and worth exploring. Pull in the wisdom of generations upon generations of witches and wild women and pioneers and mothers and lovers and midwives and subversives. And then forge your own path. The way only you can. You were born for this.”

“Palmira. She’s like an apparition floating unknowingly into her future,’ I said. ‘Here for too brief a time.”

“Raising a daughter who is aware and knowledgeable of the world so that she can navigate through it with her eyes open, rather than closed, can be one of her best protection. Knowledge is power. – Raising A Strong Daughter: What Fathers Should Know by Finlay Gow JD and Kailin Gow MA”

“MY MOTHER GETS DRESSEDIt is impossible for my mother to do eventhe simplest things for herself anymoreso we do it together,get her dressed.I choose the clothes withoutzippers or buckles or straps,clothes that are simplebut elegant, and easy to get into.Otherwise, it’s just like every other day.After bathing, getting dressed.The stockings go on first.This time, it’s the new ones,the special ones with opaque black trianglesthat she’s never worn before,bought just two weeks agoat her favorite department store.We start with the heavy, careful stuff of the right toesinto the stocking tipthen a smooth yank past the knob of her ankleand over her cool, smooth calfthen the other toecool ankle, smooth calfup the legsand the pantyhose is coaxed to her waist.You’re doing great, Mom,I tell heras we ease her bodyagainst mine, rest her whole weight against meto slide her black dresswith the black empire collarover her headstruggle her fingers through the dark tunnel of the sleeve.I reach from the outsidedeep into the dark for her hand,grasp where I can’t see for her touch.You’ve got to help me a little here, MomI tell herthen her fingertips touch mineand we work her fingers through the sleeve’s mouthtogether, then we rest, her weight against mebefore threading the other fingers, wrist, forearm, elbow, bicepand now over the head.I gentle the black dress over her breasts,thighs, bring her makeup to her,put some color on her skin.Green for her eyes.Coral for her lips.I get her black hat.She’s ready for her company.I tell the two women in simple, elegant suitswaiting outside the bedroom, come in.They tell me, She’s beautiful.Yes, she is, I tell them.I leave as they carefullyzip her intothe black body bag.Three days later,I dream a large, greensuitcase arrives.When I unzip it,my mother is inside.Her dress matchesher eyeshadow, which matchesthe suitcaseperfectly. She’s wearingcoral lipstick.”I’m here,” she says, smiling delightedly, wavingand I wake up.Four days later, she comes homein a plastic black boxthat is heavier than it looks.In the middle of a meadow,I learn a nakedmore than naked.I learn a new way to hugas I tighten my fistaround her body,my hand filled with her ashesand the small stones of bones.I squeeze her tightthen open my handand release herinto the smallest, hottest sun,a dandelion screaming yellow at the sky.”

“And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. In me, they see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in Chinese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed American-born minds “joy luck” is not a word, it does not exist. They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any connecting hope passed from generation to generation.”

“To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase ‘terrible beauty.’ Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it’s a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else’s body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.”

“Hide yourself in God, so when a man wants to find you he will have to go there first.”

“Daddy,” I whispered, feeling my own breath hitch in my throat. “I love you.”Just when I was sure he was asleep, the one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “I knew that,” he murmured. “Always knew that.”

“It’s not always easy being her daughter.’ I think,’ she said, ‘sometimes it’s hard no matter whose daughter you are.”

“As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.”

“My mother… she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”