We were all scared of her. And now that I think about it, I never knew why.

She was a serious person, for sure. Serious, and when she gets angry, she would be very and scarily angry. But that’s every women. That’s every men. That’s human. So I don’t really know. There was always a distance, a separation, between us.

Years later, many, many years later, I found out why. She was the mother of the house, but she wasn’t my mother. But more specifically, she gave up two of her kids–her motherhood dreams–to give my sister and I a place to be. A home to stay. A family to belong to–call ours. In her dwelling. And from that moment, still going on today, my family has been torturing her for it. Vilifying her acts. And meanwhile, I don’t think they really did much (aside from fighting each other). She was the one who made the sacrifice. The ultimate sacrifice, I would say.

So now I’m starting to understand why, my whole childhood, there was always a disconnect between her and I. Something holding her back. Something holding us back.

From each other.

I would be an endless stretch of deserted miles away from her, when in reality, we were just across the room from each other. Me sitting on a couch, her on another, next to the father. Our line of sight briefly intersect, brush each other, at times. But all this background noise, all this unseen chaos, holding us back: mother from son.

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Here’s some of my story. Thank you for reading.