No More Sorry

I keep forgetting kindness that was bestowed upon me graciously by my family over the years but the holidays were meant to remind me.

As my sisters and I stroll through the open-air mall we pass a modest-sized skating rink. We then all recounted the time when their mother (my stepmother) would take us to the local ice skating rink in Hawaii. This conjured up memories, happy ones, when she had taken me ice skating for the very first time before my sisters were born. That was the happiest I had I ever been with her, before I ruined our relationship with my unbridled teenage angst.

Thinking about my stepmother now and her frail condition, thinking about how emotionally detatched she is from me… my heart breaks. But I can think back to when she was younger, when her body was not racked with illness, back to when I was an innocent and lonely child. I can remember the way my toes would be numb from the cold after I had skated around gleefully while she watched and waved at me from the benches. Laura had loved me once. I can cling to that.