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How did a mother carry that weight of concern for her children when her obligation to provide for them consumed so much of her waking life that it meant neglect in most other aspects, in time and attention, and made the children and the parent strangers to one another in the same home? How did my mother carry this weight? I admired and respected her even then without realizing I did, and without possessing even the vaguest notion of the sacrifices she made.
As I saw it, her life of isolation was brought on by the necessity of keeping the three of us from ending up living in the Pontiac. Her bony fingers were raw and pink, and her eyes extinguished of any flicker of exuberance that once lit them. I never thought about my mother’s toil, a mundane, exhausting routine every day, with never a pause in its monotony and drudgery. I never thought of what it took to rise in the still-dark night while I luxuriated in sleep, under my warm covers. I never once thought about the will it took for her to resist the sleep her body and mind and soul must have
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I never thought of what it took to face the same day she had faced yesterday and would face again tomorrow, never thought of the long, tedious hours on her feet, waiting on others, putting everyone else’s demands before her own, with no encouragement from another soul to keep her going—just herself and her obligation to my sister and me. What a triumph of commitment, of love. Yet I’d never thought once about it. And I didn’t think about it in that moment, either, as we sat in the kitchen together.
Don’t wreck your future trying to understand the past. Knowing won’t change what happened. People always want the truth. I did once and now, I wonder why. The truth is often ugly and mean. That’s why we lie to one another, after all, isn’t it?
