Mother

A Story by Julia

I remember the screams coming from the next room. I remember huddling in the bathroom with my two sisters crying and praying that it would end soon. Hoping that mom wouldn't be crying again and dad wouldn't be shrieking. As bad as the yells and screams were and as much as I wanted it to be over it doesn't mean I wanted them to be over. I knew they were coming to an end we all knew it, we realized once they had gone months on end not speaking to each other. I knew she wasn't happy I knew my mother was unhappy but she stuck through it. She kept pushing past the insults and daily emotional abuse to keep this family. She did it for us so that us girls wouldn't have to grow up in a "broken home" . I remember the day she told me it was over, it all happened so fast I didn't even have time to process what was happening let alone react. The day my mother left marks the day I realized my mom is the strongest women I have ever met. She stood up for herself and after twenty years she finally grew a voice of her own. It wasn't easy for her seeing as she had been with only one man her entire life and had obeyed his every command for almost twenty years. When she was telling us about the separation I remember saying, "Mom why now?" and she said, "Because all these years I kept this loveless marriage going because I believed I was protecting you girls and that you needed your father and I to be together but then I realized that you are all women too. You are all women who I want to be strong and independent and if I want my daughters to be strong and stand up for themselves then I need to lead by example and do the same. Because no person in this world especially no MAN can make you feel worthless or take away your power. You are all strong women and you deserve a mother as strong." My mother has become my hero ever since. It wasn't easy for her leaving him. She had moved to this foreign country where she didn't speak the language and had left her family behind when she was only 22 to marry him and have us. She knew it was going to be hard, having to provide for her three daughters completely on her own, but she knew it was worth it. She knew that one day when her daughters were grown up she would want them to be proud of their mother for being strong. And I can say now that I am the proudest daughter a mother could have.