Unhappy family
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina As 2016 – a year that most of us would like to forget – ends and a New Year waits in the wings, memories of the not-so-distant past continue to haunt me. Some of them, naturally, are about my mom’s long illness, mental decline and eventual passing. It’s been less than a year and a half since she died, so the emotional wounds haven’t quite begun to turn into scar tissue. The pain, which was intense in the beginning, has dulled a bit over time, yes, but it’s never truly gone. I suppose that I feel this way in part because I miss my mom. After all, we lived together for more than 50 years, and we had a great parent-child relationship right up to the end of her life. For some reason, she never encouraged me to move out – I have cerebral palsy, and even though I am capable of living semi-independently, Mom felt that it was more mutually beneficial if I stayed at home. She o