A Mother's Love

 

The first person a child loves is her mother. This means that, for a child, a mother is the most important thing in life, and so is the love she gives you. Scientific studies found that a mother's love is extremely important for the healthy emotional outcome of a child. The mother is the primary caregiver; how she loves her child greatly affects his or her life. If a child doesn't feel loved, he/she feels unlovable. The primary caretaker, who is the mother, is also the main role model for a child. I missed the most important thing in life-- at least, something I thought was the most important. My mother left me when I was a baby. She probably had her reasons, but leaving your child shouldn’t be an option. She left without saying goodbye or why. She left and made me think it was my fault. I don't and probably will never know why she left me, but I think in the end it is the best thing that happened to me.

 

I have been struggling for years trying to know things life doesn’t want me to know, trying to find the missing pieces of the puzzle that I have cried over so many times. Not knowing why someone doesn’t love you is the worst thing. As a child, it was very difficult for me because, a few years after my mother left me, she wanted me back. At that time, things were different: I had a stepmother whom I loved and who loved and cherished me like her own child. That didn’t stop my mother from having what she wanted. She decided to contact my father saying she wanted her child back. She used to come to my school while I was in class, saying that she was my mother and that I should live with her. I was confused and scared, for she was not the picture I had imagined of my mother. She used to come to my house screaming, saying that she wanted me back, as if someone had taken me from her. My dad didn’t agree to just let me go, so he decided to take me to see my mom a few times every month. Every time I went to her house, I started crying. I never wanted to stay. The last time I went there, I was mature enough to say to my dad that I didn’t want to go there anymore. As far as I knew, that woman was not my mother, and my real mom was at home. That day was the last time I ever saw her.

 

I am grateful that my dad had understood me and respected my decisions. I don’t know what I would be now if he had let me live with my mother. My questions to her right now would be how she feels, how she feels about me right at the moment, how she feels about all she has missed from my first to my nineteenth birthday. If she had the chance to go back and change what she did, would she? I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive her.  I don’t know what good excuse she could possibly give for me to forgive her, for me to just forget everything and move on as if nothing happened. I have been hurt, broken by someone who was supposed to be my hero, my model.

 

Some people say I should talk about it, that I should be open about it. But will that make me feel better if I do? Will it make me feel more confident about everything I do? I wouldn’t know until I try. I have been trying for a year to talk about it, at least to the people who are close to me, and yet it doesn’t make things better. I still have many questions floating through my mind. Not having a mother to care for me, someone to look up to, affected me mentally and physically for the rest of my life. I know I am not the only child that is going through that situation, and knowing that breaks my heart because, no matter what the circumstances are, a mother should never leave her child.

 

I think having a human being calling you mom is the best feeling, but I fear that my situation with my mother will keep affecting my life. I still don’t know the reasons my mom left me and never will. Until today, I asked myself many questions that will stay unanswered. It scares me to think that if one day I  have children, I would leave them like my mom did to me, even though I want to believe nothing on earth would make me do something like that.

 

I don’t expect for everything to be better the next day. I know it will take time. I think that all the abandoned children around the world deserve to know that they are not the reason they were left because they don’t deserve to feel guilty about their parents’ mistake. My father and stepmother raised me well. I know what’s right and wrong. I am a strong person with a big spirit and a great mind. I know that I won’t turn out to be like my mom after all.

 

Emma, Bridge Academy, 12th grade