So much unresolved heartache has been passed down either through genetics or learned behavior.

Feelings of guilt, terror, the emptiness that clings after the untimely death of a loved one, or just being overwhelmed, get shared with the generations that come after you.

Feelings influence our actions and attitudes.

We unintentionally teach our behaviors to our children.

I have often felt the weight of some unnamed burden. Perhaps it has been handed down to me because an ancestor didn’t know what to do with it.

I’m accustomed to these familial artifacts. They are inwrought like vestigial limbs.

There are gifts hidden in the baggage as well. They can be hard to recognize because they are so often mislabeled.

Maybe we, the current incarnation of this slowly flowing biomass of shared DNA, can contribute a change in our generation.