Today

It's raining. Great... I'm seeing a therapist today for the first time. Actually I've seen a few over the years but never made it past the second or third appointment because it was too hard for me to go through the re-telling of my childhood. The last two therapists were for my son who has Aspergers. The therapist would ask the inevitable question of how was my childhood and I would say, "Great!" Why bother spending time that should be spent helping my son discussing my childhood. I'm supposed to see a second therapist that my husband has chosen for us to see together but there is no appointment yet. I don't understand how someone can be a therapist, helping people, and not return a new patient's phone call asking for an appointment? I'd be finding a different therapist but I told my husband he would be the one to find the marriage counselor since he was the one leaving the marriage.

It was raining the morning my mother died. After saying over and over how she wanted to die in her sleep she got what she wished for, a massive heart attack at the age of fifty. The memory is crystal clear. My mother gasping for air and my father reaching over trying to wake her. A call to 911 with instructions given on how to perform CPR. My father trying his best to do something he'd never done before on a wife who pretty much hated him. I wonder how that felt? I guess those feelings melt away when it's a life or death situation. My father tried to do the right thing. EMS came and they put her on the floor, continuing to do CPR and shock her back to life. For a long time I wouldn't step on the spot where my mother lied on the floor that morning. It was a quick drive to the hospital in the pre-dawn hours but it seemed to take a lifetime. My father asked the desk nurse when we arrived to the ER how my mother was doing. She looked at my father, then at me and said "She's not breathing." It wasn't long after that that we got the news. We walked out of the hospital, my father's arm around my shoulder. It was a long silent car ride home.

I was twelve and just at the cusp of the teen years when all you want is to be just like everyone else.