The ups and downs in my life I always attributed to the absence of my mother, who left me with my father when I was still an infant. However, I was older when she finally returned, and the shocking truth about why she left had me in awe! In this heartbreaking tale, I learned that sometimes it’s best to forgive while you can.
On my eighteenth birthday, my world, as I knew it, was flipped upside down, not by some grand revelation or coming-of-age realization, but by a package. A simple, unassuming parcel that held within it the weight of a past I thought I’d moved beyond.
It was from Laurie, a woman whose existence in my life had been nothing more than a shadow—a figure who had left me and my dad, Ralph when I was just nine months old. She was more of a stranger than a parental figure to me.
You see, my parents were both eighteen when they had me. Laurie came from a world of wealth and dreams far bigger than the small town we called home. Dreams that didn’t include a young man who wasn’t from her world or a baby that might anchor her down, or so I believed.