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Mom and I Were Never Close, but Her Death Left Me in Pieces
I had felt a guilty sense of relief when Mom finally went, and it pains me now to think that she had been any burden to me, even in the end.
I was never one to think of my childhood. I wanted to free myself from the past. I wanted to get rid of the hurt — to be born again. Now, as I prepared to bury my mother and to start a new career of which she would have been proud, floods of emotions from a childhood past came rushing back at me.
I had been operating on automatic pilot ever since Mom became ill. I was exhausted. I needed a holiday. I had felt a guilty sense of relief when Mom finally went, and it pains me now to think that she had been any burden to me, even in the end.
All of my life, I have blamed her for everything. I blamed her for having me, for losing me, and for bringing me back. Now, here I was, getting on a plane going back to the scene of the crime. So what if it was thirty years later? I was going back to see my father’s grave. I was finally going to confront the old boy. Maybe I would grieve at last.
“Mom, why’s he crying?”
“I don’t know, sweetheart. Maybe he just don’t like Airports. Why don’t you ask him? He’s your brother.”
