u/ImmediateRelative515

I’m an only child.

Growing up, my mom was rarely around. I never knew my father, so I was raised by my grandparents and relatives. My mom provided for me financially, but emotionally, she always felt just out of reach.

I used to wonder why she left me behind when I was young. Why she wasn’t there for birthdays, school events, and all the moments that children usually share with their parents. As I got older, I started understanding her more. She grew up in a family where love was shown through sacrifice, not affection. She became the breadwinner, carrying not only me but also much of her family on her shoulders, helping her siblings even after they had families of their own.

She is a good daughter. She is a hardworking woman. But whenever I try to call her a good mother, it feels like I’m trying to convince myself of something I’m not fully sure about.

I love my mom. I really do.

But love doesn’t erase the hurt. Sometimes she says things that cut deep, and it’s difficult hearing insults from the one person you desperately want love from. Even then, I find myself making excuses for her because I know life hasn’t been kind to her either.

Years ago, she told me that she almost aborted me because of how difficult her situation was. A friend convinced her not to go through with it.

Ever since hearing that, I’ve carried a strange kind of grief.

I grieve for the dreams my mother never got to chase. The places she wanted to travel to. The memories she wanted to make. The life she might have had if she hadn’t become responsible for everyone else.

Sometimes I look at her and forget she was once just a girl with dreams of her own.

And maybe that’s the saddest part.

Not that she became my mother.

But that somewhere along the way, she had to stop being herself.

And sometimes I wonder if a part of me has spent my whole life mourning the person she could have been.

Transaction Failed

I Don’t Know If Calling My Mom a Good Mother Is Honest

Graduation