A year ago I managed to get in contact with someone my mother had known when she was in her late teenage years and early 20s. We talked a lot. I learned things which changed the way I understood who my mother had been. I can never tell my three brothers about this person, or my Dad, or anyone else in my family.
The email dates:
18.9.2018 (me)
23.9.2018 (them)
25.9.2018 (me)
26.10.2018 (them)
30.11.2018 (me)
6.12.2018 (them)
11.12.2018 (me)
11.1.2019 (them)
14.5.2019 (me)
5.12.2019 (them)
I wonder if it was the right thing to do, because now I have to live with this gap between my family and me. But I also know, and realise now, that there are many of these tiny gaps. There are so many things my grandparents, father, and brothers know about my mother that I don’t. Sometimes one of my brothers will tell me something that causes a seismic shift in my understanding of my parents and my family. The youngest person really left behind, I could one day be the last person alive who knew my mother, but also the one who knows the least.
The email dates:
18.9.2018 (me)
23.9.2018 (them)
25.9.2018 (me)
26.10.2018 (them)
30.11.2018 (me)
6.12.2018 (them)
11.12.2018 (me)
11.1.2019 (them)
14.5.2019 (me)
5.12.2019 (them)
I wonder if it was the right thing to do, because now I have to live with this gap between my family and me. But I also know, and realise now, that there are many of these tiny gaps. There are so many things my grandparents, father, and brothers know about my mother that I don’t. Sometimes one of my brothers will tell me something that causes a seismic shift in my understanding of my parents and my family. The youngest person really left behind, I could one day be the last person alive who knew my mother, but also the one who knows the least.