Not Angry Any Longer (or Now That I’m Old I Understand)

I was angry with my mother for a long, long time. All manner of understanding and consideration of her circumstances never helped me to “get it”. Now, at 52, I get it.

When my mother was 35, she walked out on my daddy, and of course that meant me as well. I was 6. She ran away with a man she had begun seeing from work. After a few weeks, from what I have been told, she was left there in the motel room they had been living in when the guy decided to go back to his wife and kids. I am told he called my father and told him where she was and that she was talking about suicide. Daddy immediately went after her.

Life went on as usual. The only thing that changed was mother had to leave her job and go to work somewhere else so that she would not be around this man any longer. That was daddy’s only requirement to her coming back home. Otherwise nothing changed. No one talked. The only speaking that was done in our home was reminding someone to pick up some milk or telling someone to be sure and sweep the porch before night. It was years before I understood that in some families’ people actually talked to each other; even when they didn’t “need anything”. Some parents hugged and even kissed their kids. Why some parents hugged each other! Wow!!

Six years later, she was 41 and I was 12, she left again. This time it was with a different man. Someone at her new job. I was warned that eventually I would have to g to court and tell a judge which parent I wanted to live with. I was also told which parent to choose; this by my only sibling, a sister. She is 10 years older than me and she eloped at 15 so she was already gone by time mother left the first time.

I understand now. I spent a lot of years being mad at her. She doesn’t know that, but I did. Was what she had done wrong? Of course it was. Very wrong. Was she human? You bet she was! I understand now.