The weekend following the accident my daughter would tell me of how on his arrival, the woman’s husband offered to and helped my daughter move the boxes of books, copies of my novels, from the back of my SUV, its back window blown out by the impact of the crash, into the trunk of my daughter’s car.
The woman, by then had grown silent, I in the paramedic van well into my journey toward the hospital.
Nearly forty years later I realize my greatest fear was that I would not survive, that my mother, in one of her raging tantrums as a parent would kill me. I was her child, her daughter, and as such she owned me to mold and shape in way that would make me successful in the world, so that I might shine respectably and reflect brightly upon her.
Punishing me with corporal methods was her method by which to achieve this, an act that many parents in this year of 2014 still adhere to.
My mother was not so different than many living presently in America, valuing appearances and things over feelings and individuals.
The woman driving the Jeep Wrangler that slammed into my SUV reminded me of this. She presented me one more glimpse into the life and actions of my mother.
And in so doing she showed me how much my mother was hurting, how her actions though painful and horrific upon me, brought her so much more ache and suffering.
And in this I hold her in compassion.
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