This thesis began as a way to explore and unpack my relationship with my mother, with my gender, and with Judaism – all through the lens of Ritual in both the personal and religious sense. This thesis is about myself and my mother and it simultaneously isn’t. It’s about the complexities of how my dad feels about his mom. It is about my mother having her mouth scrubbed out with soap by her mother. It is about their mothers before them. It is about womanhood and motherhood, and at the same time, it isn’t. (It feels more expansive than womanhood and yet specific to the experience of trauma handed down by your mother). It is in remembrance of the eldest daughter I once was and the eldest daughter I could have been. My primary question or line of inquiry is: how do I honor and hold space for those who came before me, particularly the women who came before me, while also accepting the harm that they handed down generationally? In this exploration I have been making candles and holders to house them, a timelapse to watch those candles burn again and again, mirrors to reflect my mother and her mother before her, and a soft, tactile family tree to hold those who came before me in my hands.