Time To Heal

Growing up(around the age of 6 and 7)my mother and I were close. I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was always sheltering me from the outside world. It caused me to be kind of an awkward kid. My social skills with the people around me were bad. I was comfortable being locked inside with my mother and sister, knowing we were all safe.

Before the age of 10, books became my friend. Whether I was home or at school, I was reading. The more advanced I got, the more kids would distance themselves from me. My mother is the reason for my passion. If it wasn’t for her, I probably still wouldn’t know what I’m good at. It’s like she just knew what I was born to do.

After my mother went to jail for a year, we weren’t the same with one another. I talked to her every day on the phone, wrote consistent letters, and attended every court hearing. But, that didn’t stop the wedge between us once she got home. In fact, she didn’t say a word to me. Back home she didn’t ask me how I’d been or how I felt about her being home. Instead, she opened my room door to give me all the books she read while being gone, and closed my door.

Of course I read them. Every single one. I would stay up all night because I didn’t want to wait til the morning to find out what happened next in the story. I barely talked to my sister and would get annoyed when she would try to do things with me. Same with my mother. I didn’t want to run to the store or play games. I wanted to read. She opened up a world for me that I didn’t want to leave from. The world in my books were better than the world I was living in reality.

By the age of 15, me and my mother were no longer close at all. We fought, we argued, and we never seem to be on the same page about anything. I knew I was different from her and my sister, but the older I got the more it became harder to ignore. That didn’t make me lose love for my mother, but it made me keep my distance. I used to stay out for days at a time at a friend’s house during the summer, and didn’t talk to my mother at all. It wasn’t until her birthday when I realized I was hurting her badly. She walked up the stairs with tears in her eyes, and the look of heartbreak on her face. I never thought my mother missed me because she never showed it. I thought it was better that I was gone, but the whole time I was bringing pain to her.

Our bond grew when I turned 16. I had decided to settle down with my fiancée(we met in high school and got engaged when I turned 17). It gave me the time to begin a fresh start with my mother. She seen me in a different light. She was beginning to see who her baby girl truly was meant to be. We talked regularly, and although I wasn’t living with her, I visited her a lot. Months later I had gotten pregnant with her first grandchild.

My mother never got to see her grandchild be born. She died in the hospital when I was only six months pregnant. It shook me. It changed my whole outlook on life. After the words “she didn’t make it” came out of the lady’s mouth, I instantly began to think about all of the time I wasted being angry with her. Although we were in a good space when she passed, it still wasn’t enough time for me. She was 3 months away from her 40th birthday, 2 months away from my 18th birthday, and 3 months away from my child being born. It played out like a dramatic movie I would never want to see. The kind of movie where things feel so perfect in your life, and you get hit with a fatal blow that disrupts everything.

To this day I don’t feel right inside. Like someone erased a part of my story and edited the script. But, I know I can’t keep ahold of that negative part of my life forever. I try to hold onto the happy memories that I have with her, and always make sure that her grandchildren know how beautiful their grandmother was. I miss her, but I know it’s time for me to heal.