I Know I Was Not Meant To Have A Mother

I know in my heart and soul I was not meant to have a mother. Some say we choose our parents to teach us the lessons we are supposed to learn while here on earth. I believe, we are all here to learn lessons, each of us has our own agenda when we arrive screaming into this world. God, knows our destiny and what is going to happen to us at each moment in our life.
I have asked myself why would I choose to have my mother taken from me at the age of three, to be raised by an alcoholic, witness unbelievable tragedies with my own eyes at very young ages, to lose a best friend at the age of eighteen in a car accident, and to live a life filled with anxiety, inner turmoil, and resentment? Who chooses that? There are people walking this earth that supposedly chose worse existences than me. Some people supposedly chose sexual abuse, to live in genocide, to die be tortured in the Vietnam War, or kill others and rot away in a jail cell.
I have finally learned the answer to why I chose the path I am on, and why God threw my into my life. I have also stopped wishing that I chose the life that involves living in Connecticut with the wonderful stay at home mother that always wore the matching cardigan with pearl buttons, and a lovely pair of khaki's, and loafers that sometimes had the penny in them, and the father that was the wonderful family practitioner in town that all the families were treated by. Of course I would go to private school with all the children that my father healed, and continue on to an Ivy league college.
Nope, that was not my life. I do not knock that life. I was not meant to life that life and I have many wonderful friends that had a similar existence to the one in the paragraph above. Let me tell you the gifts that I have gotten on my very unconventional journey.
I have relationships in my life that I would never have had. I cannot think or wish for the things I might have had if my mother lived and my father wasn't a raging alcoholic, I just know what I have. I have a relationship with my sister that is the most amazing and fulfilling gift I could have ever asked for. We have unconditional love. We have a bond that is so tight that not even a locomotive going at full speed could break. I have relationships with friends that most people can only dream of.
I learned from an early age whom I could trust and who was full of crap. I had to obtain great instincts early on, or I would sink. I learned compassion and empathy by the age of seven. Do you know how far that compassion and empathy got me in life? Very far ladies and gentlemen. I learned how to nurture others and myself. I knew when to pull back and when to give my all for the good of another person. I am able to put other peoples needs in front of my own, and at the same time not lose who I am and what I need.
I enjoy a rainy day and a sunny day. I know life can be down, but I also know life comes right back up. I would never be phased by a trivial want that I didn't get. I am not even phased by adversity, an uphill battle or a set back that at the time seems like life is caving in and there is no exit. For I know, that life will always have its ups and downs, and exits on either side of me. I am sure you know the saying that what goes up must come down. I think of that saying but in a different way. When life is down, I say it must come back up. It is all in your mind and how you perceive life!
If you have an attitude of gratitude, you will continue to get gifts to be grateful for. I am grateful for every lesson I have learned, and all the gifts I have been given. I am a survivor. You can throw me into any situation and I will survive. When I was ten years old, my sister was thirteen, and my brother was eight we were stranded in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with my father. We were outside and island called Cat Cay. Our boat stopped. My father radioed for help. One minute we were frolicking in the water and the next minute my siblings and I were staring at our father and our boat on fire.
My father jumped in the water, steam rose, and I swam to him. His face looked like bacon. His eyebrows were cinged, the skin on his arms were charred so badly that it peeled up to his shoulder and left the raw skin underneath exposed. A helicopter flew him to the Miami burn center. My siblings and I were placed in a room on an island called Cat Cay with cockroaches crawling all around us. We sat on a bed hovered together with my father's drivers license. Somehow we got his wallet. I told my siblings I saw my father's face, and he will never look like that again!
It is all in my book. But don't you think that if I can survive that, the death of my mother, and all the other crap that has been thrown at me that I can surely survive most things? The answer is YES! Not only can I survive adversity, but I can survive with a smile on my face, compassion in my heart, empathy that seeps through my skin, and most importantly with forgiveness! If I can learn these lessons, and create a character that consists of all the above characteristics, so can you.
Go in peace. Embrace your life, for you are living the life you were meant to live. Love your journey, and shower the ones around you with love.
Heather