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My high school and college graduations.
And my favorite times …
Whenever I walked in the house or a room and she saw me. As if she was just happy to see me, not because I did something special. Just because I existed. She loved me.
I still remember the moments I overheard her crying over unpaid bills or worrying about the cost of medical expenses. Those moments are overshadowed, however, by the love I’ve always experienced.
“You know,” my mother continues, causing me to open my eyes to look at her again.
I wipe the tears away to see her clearly.
“You’re the reason I ever met your dad.” Her smile grows at the mention of my stepdad. “Without you, your brother and sister wouldn’t exist. And I wouldn’t have met your Aunt Kayla.”
I wrinkle my forehead in confusion.
“You’re the reason I sought out a doctor’s office that had a naturopath. I read somewhere that some patients with diabetes were helped by working with a naturopath as well as their regular medical doctors. I wanted to get you the best care. That’s how I found the office where Kayla used to work.”
My aunt is a naturopath, who, for many years, worked alongside MDs to treat patients together. Now, she works full-time for the community center she started with her sisters and mother-in-law.
“Kayla and I became friends, and through your uncle, Joshua, is how I met your dad. So, if you want to blame yourself for anything in my life, you can take responsibility for quadrupling the amount of love I have in my life today.”
I don’t know why, but that’s the moment that I break out into a full body sob. The truth of how deep and profound my pain around all of this ran never occurred to me. I had just been masking and doing my best to bury this guilt and shame I felt for so many years. I thought I’d managed to become numb to it.
Yet, the tears I shed as my mom holds me, rocking me back and forth just like she did when I was a little girl, tells the story.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs in my ear. “Let it out.”
“I can’t believe you knew all this time,” my mother says as we slowly pull apart.
The lump that was in my throat seems to have dissolved with the numerous tears I shed.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper as I wipe away the remaining tears.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. I just wish you would’ve come and talked to me.”
I shrug at the same time her hands slide down my arms, coming to rest around my hands.
“I didn’t know how,” I admit. Honestly, how was I supposed to go to my mother with that information? “I believed what you told me as a kid. Then Nana let it slip what that group you used to go to was for. I asked her about it, and she admitted what my …” I pause because I refuse to call that man my father.
“Whathedid, and that I …” My lip quivers and I find it too difficult to let those words fall from my lips. Not to her.
“I can’t believe she told you,” my mother says, the first hint of irritation rising in her tone.
I know her dismay isn’t directed at me. She and my great-grandmother had a complicated relationship. I didn’t know the woman who raised my mother for the first decade of my life.
“Please don’t be mad at Nana,” I say. “It was in the last few months of her life. I don’t even think she meant to tell me the truth, but she was on so many meds and you know how she used to say things she didn’t mean or realize.”
My mom squeezes my hands and nods, understanding.
“Damon was right.” She pushes out a breath. “He told me a long time ago that secrets have a way of coming out.”
“He knows?” I don’t know why that surprises me. For some reason, I assumed that my mother kept the truth from me, she must’ve kept it away from him as well.
She nods. “There isn’t anything that your father doesn’t know about me. And vice versa. On this I wish I had followed his advice. Maybe you wouldn’t have stayed away from us for so long. And you wouldn’t feel like you’re a burden to anyone. Especially the man you love.”
She gives me an expectant look.
My heart muscles tighten because I know she’s referring to Diego.
