There are moments when I see reflections of my parents in me as there are moments when I see reflections of their father and me in my own children. It’s interesting that the characteristics I see in myself, and identify as coming from one of my parents, are usually the ones I would label as “bad” and the ones I wish I had more of are the ones I identify as “good.”

My dad was a perfectionist, competitive and demanding. He also loved unstintingly, albeit selectively, and had at least a few advanced degrees in worrying. If you were leaving to go home, or back to school, after a visit, and had some distance to travel, you could be certain your phone would be ringing as you opened the door. I can only imagine what a cellphone would have been like in my dad’s hands, his usual 4-5 times daily calls would be unlimited.

Do I see many of those things in myself? I do. I can worry with the best of them. I won’t admit to being as difficult as he was but I know that, if I were choosing from a list of attributes, I’d be checking many of those boxes.

My mother, on the other hand, was the absolute wellspring of positivity. She wasn’t blind to negatives but she steadfastly believed that it was imperative to “make the best” of everything and she lived by the motto that “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.” If you had known her, you would have recognized that she was always present, always fully with you and that, at her core, she was the essence of calm. If I had known the concept of “centered,” it’s the word I would have used then and, when I use that word today, she is the image in my mind.

When we are whole, when we are evolved human beings, secure in self and steeped in kindness, I believe that we can embody a true sense of grace. We can accept, we can forgive, we can extend goodness to ourselves and others. That is what my mother could do. She could let go of the frustrations. She could forgive. And she could and would accept whatever she needed to accept, not mindlessly but with consideration and generosity of spirit.

So often we are in situations where we would be well served to find and show grace to ourselves and to others. So often our lives and our relationships would be improved if grace was within our behavior and not just a word.

For some of us, pure souls like my mother, grace comes more easily than for others. But for all of us, it is a choice. It is a choice in the way we react, the way we process, the words we use and the scars we carry. As I seek to fill my full heart, I seek to open myself to choosing grace and to seeing that quality bloom in my own life.