It is said that the strongest pillar of support for children is their parents, but what about abandoned children? The ones who learn to grow without a support system and love? The ones who learn to take care of themselves at an early age. Similar is the story of April, a resilient girl left alone in 1970. When April first came into this world, her father was 18 and her mother even younger, aged 15.
Their financial conditions were not even good enough to take care of a baby, yet being teenagers, they took the responsibility, and once discharged, April was on her way home, at the back of a motorbike.
This was how early instability and imbalance in her life started. For people who live in such conditions and face so much so early in life, all they need to learn is to make peace with themselves. Things got worse when the couple decided to get divorced, and April and her sister had to live with the father in Central California. Being so little, April initially did not understand what was happening. However, as time passed, she knew her mother might never return.
The father did remarry, but the stepmom did not fill the emptiness of not having her biological mom by her side. No matter how much she tried to avoid the feelings, sometimes it hit her. Did her mother not love her enough? It wasn’t until April became a resilient lady, at age 35, that she met her mother again. Before that, she was thankful to have her grandparents by her side as their presence made April feel loved and wanted on days she felt like giving up on the miserable life she had always had.
Tired of living in the same place, experiencing the same negative emotions, and feeling unloved, April decided to move out and become an independent woman. The good part? Things did get better after that. April also married the man she had been deeply in love with, and although they couldn’t conceive babies, their world revolved around their pets, like fur babies, which completed the family.
Living with the love of her life finally made her realize how beautiful the feeling of truly being loved and being in love was, so she tried contacting her biological mother after 5 years of marriage. She hoped that all those years, her mother’s mother’s love for April never faded away, and she still remembered her little girl. However, she did not get a reply.
God had written the daughter to meet with their mom, as April’s sister had found an Ancestry.com website where truths that hurt more than the distance were revealed. Their mother had an addiction and was still as unstable as she was years ago. The girls also discovered half-siblings who weren’t doing well in life either.
Even after discovering her after so many years, April spent the next few years deciding if they should reunite. The mother-daughter duo met in a small town in Arizona. April asked her questions, and she would have sobbed, asking if it was when they parted ways.
April also told her she wanted to build a genuine and sincere relationship, but wouldn’t fund it as long as the mother decided to fix herself.
However, although her mother agreed, nothing improved. She passed away all alone, in the same miserable condition. It still hurts April how, even after years of missing and remembering her mother, who was more like a stranger, there was nothing that changed. However, April is thankful for her partner’s presence, surrounded by sincere friends and the mothers who gave her love, on the days she most needed it. Instead of getting a perfect relationship with her mother, April now has a lot of strength and a heart full of love, for which she is thankful.
