Secrets ...

Ojibway Lake Island
Secrets always hurt someone, and rarely save anyone. Are they ever justified? Should we really trust others to have more grace, more love, more understanding, a greater ability to deal with what we think they can not.
My family like most others has its secrets. Some that have seen the light and others that remains in the shadows. Tonight I wonder at what I would have done in the moccasins of my grandfather as he kept his native heritage a secret. What I would have done as a parent believing that lying to my child was saving them from a pain a strong heart would be beat up by.
Over greasy Chinese food on flowered plates I watched my Grandmother crinkle her eyes to read her fortune. With a painfully twisted face she asked my mother what language it was written in. A casual glance over, left my mother in hysterics, and my grandma confused as mom tried to explain that it was the language of upside down. Thus releasing my loud laugh and offering a much needed release to an emotional conversation.
A conversation about lies, withholding the truth, about the hurt and anger that they cause.
And even as I sit here thinking about our worlds need for more honesty, I feel the need to keep the details in my heart. To protect and respect the ones that I love because they asked me to. Even as I feel a need to talk about it, pull it apart, understand it and learn from their mistakes. What is the point of keeping up the lie. Is the world really that un-accepting? I fear that it is more and more that. Yet I want to strive to live a life that requires no lies. To be honest with myself and give the world nothing less than who I am. Certain that I will be judged. Certain that I will, more times than not, be loved and received with grace. Hoping that by believing in the good it will become real, even as you role your eyes at what you perceive as my naivety.