๐ ๐ ๐ฐ๐ต๐ถ๐น๐ฑ๐ต๐ผ๐ผ๐ฑ ๐ถ๐ป๐ป๐ผ๐ฐ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ ๐น๐ถ๐๐ฒ๐ฑ in ๐ถ๐ด๐ป๐ผ๐ฟ๐ฎ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ. ๐ฉโ๐ฆ
Not knowing my father.
Not knowing my future.
Yet I always knew my motherโs love.
I saw with my heart, felt with my eyes, and sensed reality through my nose.
I didnโt know anything about chronic stress or have many thoughts about what I should be or shouldnโt be.
Yet I could sense something just wasnโt right.
My little nose could smell my momโs musty emotional burden when it nuzzled up against the shoulder pads of her polyester business suit.
She would cook me amazing baked ziti and lasagna, all from scratch herself.
She helped me with my homework.
She taught me how to speak Ukrainian.
She taught me how to be kind yet give a firm handshake.
She taught me to respect my elders yet remember that all respect is mutual.
However, after dinner was made, and the lessons were taught, she would go.
Back to the work of finding a good man.
Back to the society that I didnโt know anything about, but felt all the time through her stress.
I would come home some days from the school bus to an empty house because my mom was still working.
Iโd watch scary movies alone, and eat as much chocolate as my undisciplined 7 year old self would permit.
As much as I felt abandoned at times, ๐บ๐ ๐บ๐ผ๐๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ'๐ ๐ต๐ฒ๐ฎ๐ฟ๐ never left me.
Even at my age, I knew she was also just a woman feeling alone and afraid in the wide world.
Not one of us can bear madness alone.
I would take a devoted single mother any day over a whole village of emotionally absent parents.
Why?
Because only a whole woman or man can make a whole heart.
My mother gave me that heart โ the heart that allowed me to surmount the blackest of obstacles in the years to come.
The black of finally knowing what society and the broken hearts of men were capable of destroyingโฆ
๐ ๐ค๐๐ฃ ๐ข๐ in the following days as I tell you the story of how I was almost destroyed myself, and how the work of ๐น๐ผ๐๐ฒ became my ๐ฒ๐น๐ถ๐ ๐ถ๐ฟ.
Donโt compromise.ย Seek ๐ต๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ฒ๐ฟ ๐๐ฟ๐๐๐ต.
ย
Love,
Roman
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I like your last line: "The black of finally knowing what society and the broken hearts of men were capable of destroyingโฆ" I wonder if most of the harm done by humans comes from broken hearts.
Mmm