Today marked the 20th anniversary of my mom’s horrible accident.
If you haven’t read it, you can read about it here
I’ve thought some about my mom today. I cried some about my mom today. I thought about my family, and I missed them. How we all pulled together when this happened.
I thought about the little girl whose 10th birthday was just around the corner from a serious life altering event like that, and I cried for her.
I thought about how that little girl had no idea what was going to happen in life, but still had to go to school and be a kid despite being an orphan. A word I never used about myself, and yet I use it freely for that little girl.
I thought about all the changes and emotional distress that little girl was facing, and how she would eventually learn to deal with it with anger, drugs and self mutilation and I feel so bad for her. Something I never did for myself, but will do it now for her.
I look back on that day, and the ones following it and it all seems like a blur to me. I remember eating chicken, and falling asleep smelling my mom’s coat, and carting around her (very unflattering) passport picture until it fell apart. I wish I could go to that little girl, and show her all the things that her new life are going to bring. That even though right now it sucks, to hang in there because it’s all going to be worth it in the end. Show her how that event may be hard now. The hardest. But that this life has branched off to something wonderful. I wish I could go offer that girl hope, hug her more because I know how much she needed them, and maybe be nicer to the aunt who was going to adopt her.
It’s taken me 20 years, but I don’t look back on that day with sadness for myself any more because I know what my life is now and that everything that my life is now, is because of what happened to me in the past. The troubles my mom had made me a better mom, and more aware of my own mental health. The living conditions I was raised in, have made me more aware of my own household and have given me the drive to stockpile food. It makes me more aware of my temper, and the beast that I can be, so that I’m not. I’ve learned to never walk away from my family in anger, and I make sure my last words to someone I love are never something I’d regret if I never saw them again.
