"You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it." Unknown
As usual, some catchy quote has me thinking about it's application to my existence. As most of you who read my blog are aware, I was not raised by my birth parents. I had the great pleasure of having my mom as a mother, and even though she is terribly flawed and drives me crazy, I am eternally grateful that I get to call her my mom. I had the opportunity to meet my birth mother before she died last year. She contacted me via Facebook, and I gave it some serious consideration.
When I was a small child, I had the normal thoughts of an abandoned child. "Was I a bad kid, and that's why she didn't love me?" "If I had been better, would she have kept me instead of giving me away?" Now once I got older and understood the situation better, I learned that she was all kinds of troubled herself. She had drug and alcohol problems so severe, they kept her from raising her family or having a normal life. I justified her actions by saying to myself that I was better off anyway, no kid should be raised in that kind of environment. I got to live in a normal house, with a somewhat normal family instead of a shitty trailer park with a loser. I am nothing if not practical, so I talked myself up for years. I rationalized and rationalized, because that is what I tend to do. None of that changed the fact that I was so angry, for so long, that I did not even recognize the anger in myself anymore.
Pardon my french on this one, but fuck her! It is an extremely difficult task to have children and raise them the best we can. It would be the easy and cowardly thing to give our children away for others to raise. (You see that, the anger is still there, bubbling under the surface.) I think she was a piece of crap to choose her vices over us. I think she is a piece of crap for saying, "they are better off without me." So, when I got the message that she wanted to meet with me on her deathbed to explain herself, I said no. I have no love for her. I did not care about any stupid excuses she came up with about how why she was such a shitty parent. I could not even believe she asked to talk to me! The nerve of her! Really!
Only, now I wish I would have given her the chance to explain. Because even though there is nothing she could have said that would make it all better, she could have at least said she was sorry.
Don't live with regret. Listen to your heart. I know these are cliches, but they have real world application. Don't be silly like me!
Until next time.......
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