Abandoned!

While growing up my family was the basis of a normal middle class family, a mother, a father, four daughters, a dog, and a cat. I remember always thinking about how it was strange when my friends' parents were not together, now i know what its like. I used to think that i would hate only seeing one of my parents every other weekend, but i soon found out that every other weekend can quite possibly be too often. Only a few days left until Christmas and I woke up to a day that would change the rest of my life!
I woke up late that morning, which was strange because my mom would not let us kids sleep past a certain time and it was long past that time. So when i finally drug myself out from under the covers i had inhabbited for the last nine or ten hours, i ventured my way down the stairs to get a shower. I faintly remember having to go to the basement to get a towl, u see it was saturday which means laundry day. In the basement I came across one of my older sisters, Kristy, and from her the bad news came as quite a shock! She explained that at some point durring the night my mother had gotten up and left, apparently never to return to stay. I thought she was kidding, i thought it was all a joke, then i realized my dad was sitting alone in a dark room rocking in a chair with his sunglasses on. I will never forget the look on his face when he saw me that morning, it was as if he could not bare to look at me without loosing his composure. This is how my nightmare began!
Two weeks had passed and still my mother had yet to return, the anger built up inside of me like a brick wall. I remember the feeling of betrayal, it was so intense and overwhelming that i actually began to hate myself. I wondered what i had done wrong and thought that if i was a better daughter she never would have left, and you know that feeling still haunts me today, eight years later. The hardest part about her leaving was trying to explain to my little sister, who was four at the time, why mommy was not comming home to kiss her good night. She was so confused and like her so were the rest of us. My oldest sister was seventeen when our mom left and she picked up a lot of duties that no seventeen year old girl should have to do, we all did really. To this day my dad feels bad that we all had to grow up so fast, but it was not his fault, he did nothing wrong. My dad was and still is a hard working man and his family was and is his life, he would do anything for us girls.
It took me years to let go of the hope that my mom would one day come back to us, and yet in my dreams, that childish fantasy still exists. I was sixteen years old when i let go of most hope of her return. My mother was around do not get me wrong but franquely she was never really there, she was always off somewhere else in her mind. Maybe over the years i had grown wisdom enough to realize the difference between the truth and empty promises. Maybe i was merely growing tired of holding my arms open for someone who would never turn around and embrace them, alls she had to offer was her back. I do not really kno what made me realize she was not coming back but I am glad i realized it! In the place where that hope exsisted, however, was a broken heart and a giant wall. It was then that the healing process had to begin. I knew it would be hard but never in a million years did I think that I would be able to say, "I am over it," but now I can. I still have yet to completely forgive her for her abandonment, but in time I am sure that will come.
My dad still loves her, he struggles to find meaning in his life still to this day. He raised four girls, practicly on his own, but us girls cannot fill his emptiness no matter how hard we try. I truely believe that seeing the pain on my fathers face is the main reason why I cannot completely forgive my mother. However, I guess if you truely love someone u have to let it go to find its own way, and that is precisely what my dad has done for my mother.