Day 152 The Perfect Mom Project

When I was 10 years old, my Aunt Ellie (my Mom’s sister) had a brain aneurism that burst. This was a difficult time in our family. My Aunt lived in Colorado then and my family lived in Michigan. My cousins were young, there were two boys and a girl, the girl was the oldest at 14 or 15 years old. My Aunt had divorced a few years earlier, so she was a single mother, just like my Mom.


At the time I was too young to realize everything that was happening, and why. All I remember was that my Mom was very upset. She really had no money to her name and she wanted desperately to get out to Colorado to be with her sister. I did not understand at the time how very sick my Aunt was or even that she could die, and I do not remember my Mom even talking to me about it. I was just on the outside looking in on a tragedy and did not even know it.

After much discussion my Grandparents (who had flown out there immediately) decided that my Aunt would have surgery and the doctors ended up removing the right side of my Aunt’s brain, which made this once vibrant young woman of 36 years old a quadriplegic. While all this was going on my Mom was scrambling to find a way out to Colorado. I am not sure how she did it, but she ended up with a plane ticket and left one day while I was out to the movies with my Great Uncle Ted (My Great Aunt Nina’s husband). I came home to a note on the table explaining that she was gone and where I would be staying while she was gone. The note said, I would spend the night at home, and her boyfriend of the time would be by late that night to stay with me. The following day I would be taken to stay with some friends of my mothers, two ladies who had a cabin out in the woods near by where we lived.

That night was the night I was molested by my mother’s boyfriend. I know I have mentioned this before, but I had no idea what he was doing at the time, and it was not until later when I did realize the effect that moment had on me. The next day I was taken to her friend’s home and I remained there for at least a month. I do not remember my Mom calling much. Perhaps she did, I was young and I cannot say for sure. What I do remember the most was feeling all alone and unprotected. I had no one.

As I look back now, I am wondering if my cousins were feeling the same way. All of these people rushing in to “help”, but my cousins were still alone, the mother that they knew and loved was gone. I wonder if they felt alone and unprotected too? Even though family was all around them, I wonder if they felt like they had no one too. Isn’t it interesting that here we were on opposite sides of the country, me with no one and them with everyone and we were both probably feeling the very same way. I remember at the time being jealous of my cousins, because they had everyone there. That all the attention was on them and their Mom and I felt like no one cared about me. It makes me sad to think back now and realize how wrong I was and how with a little bit of time and explanation I might have understood better and perhaps have felt my Mom being gone was a positive thing. I just knew one thing, I was all alone. The only difference is that my Mom came back a month later and my cousins never got their Mom back. My grandparents brought my Aunt home with them to care for her (which they did for the next 16 years) and my cousins went to live with their Dad.

As I look back on this, I feel shame and sadness for all of us. I am not sure if the tables were turned what I might do, but I have to think that I would explain to my children what was happening and they would be empathetic and caring. I am ashamed now that I felt jealous of my cousin’s tragedy. I was too young to understand that the attention they were receiving was something they would have willingly traded to have their Mom back. I am also sad that now I realize that even though my Mom was not a great Mom or even a very good mother, she was in my life, which was something that my cousins did not have.

I guess sometimes it is all about perspective. You look at someone else’s life, and you think they have it made and then later you find out things about them or the life that they lived and you realize maybe, you did not have it so bad after all. That is something I will be pondering today. Maybe, I will even talk to my kids about that. I just want to make sure that history never has to repeat it’s self. I also want to make sure that my children always know that I love them, no matter what life puts in front of us.

Todays photo is of my Aunt Ellie with my cousins and Grandaddy, that is me in the background (that's ironic isn't it?)