| StewiesMom | 02-06-2006 08:32 AM |
Here's Part One
It hasn't been proofread yet
It is a man’s world. Well, maybe it is not, but I am sure that is what my father would tell me if I knew him. I have not seen or talked to him in twenty-two years. In fact, I am not sure that I even remember what he looks like. I can hardly remember him. When I try to picture his face, I see emptiness and shadows. I think that might have been a side effect of my operation. I will ask my mother if she thinks it is a man’s world. Though I am only speculating, I am sure I would be able to tell just from the look that crosses her face that she thinks there is truth in this age old adage. That is just one of the many reasons why my mother is my shining star. She was forced to live a life she did not choose and follow a path that was not foraged on her own accord. At times I know she did not think she could take on the world, but she fought it out and has sacrificed many of her own opportunities to provide me with a life drenched in happiness and opportunity.
It is hard to block out memories from when I was five years old. That was the year the marriage of my parents ended with an ugly divorce that left my mother, a young woman from the Midwest, on her own for the first time in her life. Those close to my mother have often told her that the reason for their divorce was the thirty year age difference between my mother and my father, but my sister and I know differently. He hit her and not only left marks on her body, but also on her mind. My father left my mother financially alone and left to pursue a new life with a mail-order bride he found and imported to the Midwest from Russia. She was even younger than my mother and had two children she brought with her. It was as if my father was trying to replace my sister and me with Russian children. The Russian boy was my age and the Russian girl was the age of my sister. A memory of mine that illustrates the heartbreak is when I was perched on the back of the couch awaiting waving goodbye to my father as he walked out the front door, down the front path and into my mother’s car that the Russian bride was driving. He never looked back; he just hopped in the passenger side seat with his fragile, thin body, kissed his new wife and looked into the backseat lovingly at his new children. He never looked at me or said a farewell. I have not seen him since that fateful day, but I have heard that he is an ice fisherman in Alaska and has since abandoned his second wife and makeshift children.
When I look back on those uncertain times (and I do it often) I feel no anger toward my father and his actions; I do not know what it was like to be in his shoes at that time in his life and mine. I do see those times as laying a foundation of great stress upon my mother and our broken family. When my father left, my mother was at the most vulnerable time in her life. It was even obvious to my sister and me and we were only eight and five. Looking back at the state of mind of my mother, I imagine it was hard being 25 and having to begin to create a new life and identity of one’s self. She wasted her whole adolescence and early adult life with my father and raising my sister and me.
She stood alone in their house with no way to pay the mortgage. She did not hold a job her entire adult life because she was caring for her children and her middle-aged husband. She did not even finish secondary school. She had no certain thing in her life except for me and my sister. She had no money, no car, no friends, no family, no plan. These facts are what amazed me the most about my mother. Human nature is such that people feel an overbearing need to have something they can control; humans have no tolerance for chaos. She got a job that did not pay enough money to support herself and her two children, but it was the only type of job a non-high school graduate could obtain. She had no personal life whatsoever and it seemed like she associated with no one older than my sister. Anyone could tell by her appearance that she sometimes doubted that she could succeed by herself. It would have been easy to throw in the towel at that moment, but my mother stuck it out for my sister’s and my future.
This defines the life of the single mother. In a world run my men, it seems that these many men feel that they need not t take responsibility for actions. And while these same men ignore their responsibilities, many women remain in the shadows to face an uphill battle alone. My mother worked very hard to supply me with a good home, nutritious food, and a blissful childhood.
Where many children in my position would have felt that their father did not love them, I kept that in the back of my mind and focused more on how much love my mother had for me. It is truly astonishing to this day. | 