In 7th grade, I remember laying awake late at night and listening to my parents "fight" while laying in bed. It is always the same conflict where my mother is crying and my father is yelling at her.
This is the conversation that I remember the best
My mother was upset about her new job and close to tears at how the janitor mistreated her saying, "Augie is mean to me. He is always mean to me. I don't know what to do?"
My father is annoyed, exasperated, and angry saying, "O.K., well then QUIT if you want to."
Forty years later, I find out that my father "forced" my mother to go to work when she wanted to stay home and be a mother. Apparently he took her outside one day and said, "You have to get a job. If you do not get a job, you are nothing." So she went to work.
Scott, my brother spent his childhood as a latchkey child. He made his own lunch everyday.
Today, my mother lays in an assisted care home suffering from Alzheimer's. Although, Scott is her legal guardian, he only visits once a week at most, and usually only twice a month. It is a forty minute drive. He is a successful engineer with a family and many professional responsibilities. Brian hasn't talked to her in 12 years. I am stuck in Los Angeles and haven't visited her in over four years. She is all alone.
copyright(c)2014 Wm Schaeffer
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