Today's question (courtesy of Cafe of the Cosmic Dance) is: What did you do that caused your mother to dispair that you would every grow up?
Growing up? I was a good girl. An exemplary child. The second of six children, I was a quiet, responsible, obedient, hard-working, honor roll every term, baby sitting to earn money to buy fabric to make my own clothes, scholarship winning dutiful daughter.
Circumstances did not conspire for me to be the focal point of my parents' anguish until I was already grown up. Age 23, to be exact. I was in graduate school. I fell in love. My love and I decided to live together ('in sin,' you know *eyeroll*) in the months before we made the whole thing okay-dokey by tying the knot. Mom did not like that at all. The 'living in sin' thing, that is. Rather than causing her to despair that I would ever grow up, I suppose you could say I made her despair at my chances of ever getting into heaven.
So I redeemed myself by a walk down the aisle... but the marriage lasted less than a year. "'Til death do us part." And Death did, with the help of a drunk driver. My mom got a call at work telling her that her son-in-law was dead, and her daughter in a coma, critically injured. Thus, the total number of hours she ended up worrying about me probably adds up to more than the total she spent over the years worrying about all of my brothers and sisters combined...
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4 comments:
I am so sorry to hear of this tragedy in your life, Garnet. Is it possible to heal from such a thing?
Yes, Paul, it is possible. I spent a couple of years crossing the desert of grief, but on the other side I re-discovered love and the joy of living.
I'm very glad to hear that!
So, by ignoring the nonsense of your mother you earned extra time together with your love? Good deal.
Parents have already lived a large number of years more than their children, they have no problem with wasting the time of the people they believe they own. Getting on with it, making Mum despair, is a duty.
There is a list my mother knows about, shakes her head in disappointment. Then there is the other list.
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