I saw a lot of bad things happen to my mother as I grew up. My father, despite being a hard worker and providing food for the house, he had one particularly bad habit. Gambling. He would gamble a lot and at times he would come home and he had gambled away the money of the whole week. Whenever my parents would have a fight over that, he would twist the conversation and his jealousy would kick in mixed with anger and he would accuse our mother of cheating.
One time it was so bad that she actually tried to kill herself with rat poison, but fortunately my brother stopped her. One thing that I admire about her is that no matter the hardships and the arguing, she always kept the family together. She always stayed loyal to my father and she always smiled at us and kept us safe in her chest as she would hug us. Our mother was just an angel sent from Heaven to endure all the battles and keep us in that peaceful realm. She taught us that family stays together no matter what.
Dealing with our father must have been the hardest thing for her to do. He would sometimes hit her and one time I even witnessed him point a shotgun at her head. It was so traumatic at the time. And despite all of it, my mom, my angel, my biggest force in the universe held herself strong and stayed, determined enough to raise us to be good kids. My father’s family wanted her out of the house but she went against all of them with the force of love inside of her. She never broke the family apart through all the pain that my father caused her.
