“Sometimes parents teach us what not to do.”
We were alone, my mother and I; my father was never present, and clearly, I idolized her, placed her high atop the throne I’d built just for her. But unfortunately, I did not bring her down to wonderful but flawed human being as I grew to and through adolescence. For me, she thundered down, crashing and burning. I watched helplessly as my mother turned her life, my definition of her, over to a man who was far from worthy of her. Forty had come, and I was growing up, and in her view, away. Insecurity trapped her into thinking she had reached the end of possibility. She gained too much weight, chain smoked, stopped caring for herself. She had alienated everyone, including me, for him. I listened one night, devastated, as he yelled at her, calling her dumb, calling this goddess “bitch.” The devastating part was the tearful, sobbing apology that served as her reply. This man brought out the very worst in her, and she turned her anguish inward and fell into herself.