When I was nine, my mom said she couldn’t “handle me anymore” and left me with social workers. She promised it was temporary—I waited two years. At 11, I sent her a birthday card that came back unopened. By 13, I stopped hoping.
I bounced through foster homes and tried to forget.
At 29, married with a family of my own, she appeared—holding cookies, looking nervous but familiar. She said she was my mother.
We sat and talked. She told me about her hard life—the abusive man, her struggles, her fear of facing me. She never got better, never came back.
I asked, “Why the cookies?”
She said, “You always loved chocolate chip. I hoped they’d remind you of something good.”
They didn’t—but it was a start.
I didn’t forgive her that day, but I listened. Sometimes healing begins with simply showing up.
