Mother's Day I can handle. This past Sunday, my daughter and I were talking about Memorial Day weekend. Every year it is the most difficult time of the year for us. My youngest daughter was murdered and left behind five children. Because it was a holiday weekend, they held her body over the holiday before they did the autopsy. And then the police wanted her body held for an extra 24 hours. Didn't they realize how difficult it was on the whole family waiting to bury her? And to have five small children asking where is their mother only added to it.
The first year was so difficult. I took custody of the oldest. Trying to deal with her grief and my own at the same time left us both living in the pits of despair. I finally had the good common sense to look for help for both of us.
Her youngest one was only an infant and doesn't remember anything about her mother. It has only been the last year of so that she even found out that she is adopted. She called me one day and needed to know some of the family's medical history. She has come to visit me a couple of times. She has felt so confused over the years. She knew who and what relation her sisters are to her, but couldn't figure out why they had a different mother than her. I blame her adopted mother for never telling her the truth. But I keep my mouth shut on that one. That was not my call to make.
Finally one day when she came for a visit, we sat down together and I told her the whole truth. We talked for about three hours. I also told her, if she ever had any questions, about herself or the family, all she had to do was ask, and I would never lie to her. Good bad or indifferent, I would always tell her the truth. And I have kept my word. Both she and her middle sister had been adopted by the same family. Her adopted mother told the other four kids that they were to never tell Alligator the truth. What a terrible burden to place on children. And they never did. I am the one who told her the first time about being adopted. When she was about three years old, her adopted father dropped dead when he got up for work one morning. Another loss for the two youngest girls. As much as Alligator loves her adopted mother, she now harbors some resentment towards her for never telling her the truth.
Family secrets are a bad thing to try to keep hidden. Too many folks get hurt. Mainly the children.
It has been 15 years now and at least we can sit around and tell funny stories about her. We still have laughter in our lives.
Probably because a lot of those posting just can't get their point across in 140 characters or less - your limit per "tweet". I've thought about signing up for Twitter just to follow a couple sports writers but never bothered. I have enough time-wasters going on in my life as it is. Besides, the only tweets that are really important to me are when our town has needed to notify us during power outages, and I can read those same tweets on the town's website. The idea of tweeting for the sake of it seems so self-absorbed and narcissistic
