My two children are 7 years apart in age and as different as night and day. Our lives are pretty busy, and this fall was especially hectic. It often seemed like we were together just long enough to go over homework, plan pick up schedules, and divvy up chores. It was a pleasure over the holidays to get to spend long blocks of time with each of them. My daughter and I spent it lounging on her bed, looking at pictures, listening to her music, reading books together, talking about classes and friends and boys. My son and I worked puzzles, watched the original Mummy movie with Boris Karloff, built a nice blaze in our fire pit, and played together outside. These times are priceless to me; they were the best moments of my Christmas.

I have a lot of concerns in my life, and the biggest of all is that I am able to create a lasting peaceful life for myself and my family. I try to be a peacemaker in my own life by working to break the cycles of force and manipulation that I grew up in. I don’t always succeed, but I know that my little family, when compared to the family I grew up in, is calmer, more honest, more open with emotions, more genuine and more tolerant of one another’s individuality.

I’ve recently had cause to make this comparison and to evaluate how well I may have done at breaking these cycles. This has been an excruciating experience for me; I know how much better I want to be, and it is hard to look at my shortcomings as a parent and a wife. I wanted my children’s lives to be perfect, and they certainly are not, no matter the effort that I’ve put into it. I can step back from this analysis, however, and see clearly that they are much happier than I was at six or at fourteen. They relate with one another and with their peers with kindness and compassion; they think deeply and share honestly. They are not afraid to tell the truth. They are creative, unique, expressive individuals.

My childhood memories of holidays are tainted with sadness, frustration, and fear. I didn’t have a model for peaceful Christmas afternoons or for quite conversations with my parents. My examples for relationships are cold, distant, and fraught with conflict. I don’t have a frame of reference for being loving or peaceful; I’ve had to learn to be that way. As an adult, I taught myself to accept hugs without flinching, and I had to work at that pretty hard! On the day I brought my daughter home from the hospital, I stood by her crib as she slept and promised that I would do everything I could to be a better mom and that we’d grow up to be peaceful and happy. It’s not been as easy as making a simple promise; it’s been 14 years of tears and inner struggles, of counseling, reading, questioning, journaling, of doing the complicated inner work that survivors of abuse must do in order to change their ways of approaching the world and of relating with the people they love.

Before I start to sound pretentious, I need to clarify that this isn’t something I do alone. My favorite aunt, my granny, a couple of very close friends, then my dear husband and a dedicated counselor all deserve much more credit than I do for enacting these changes. The examples of their own behavior, their honest dialogue, their peacefulness, and their love all guide me and help me heal.

These things may seem small in comparison to the more serious issues of the day, but I know the effort that I’ve put into changing the cycles that I was raised in. Peace begins at home; I know how very true that is. Now, when I say that I got exactly what I wanted for Christmas, you’ll know how valuable each one of these moments was for me. Maybe someone else who hopes for these same gifts will read this and know that it can be done, that those cycles can be broken. We can’t change the anguish or fear that we grew up in, but we can change our own actions in order to bring peace and love into the lives of our partners and children. Yes, blessed are the peacemakers.