The Tenth Daughter of Memory

I was 18 and in trouble.

I don’t think this would’ve happened if Dad hadn’t died in June. I was lonely, did not get along with my mother, took a year off before college and here it was, October, and I was “late” – every teens nightmare. And how do I approach my mother to tell her?

I got up enough nerve to ask her how late I needed to be before I should start to worry. She said at my age if I didn’t have it and if I was sexually active, then I should be worried. Ok, so now I was worried.

They didn’t have pregnancy sticks back then from what I can recall so she had me make an appointment at this unwed mother place “in the city” – where it was confirmed that I was pregnant. Options, options, options – I was told I had a number of options. But for me, being raised a Catholic and my father being a regular church-goer prior to his passing, the only option was to keep the baby.
Epilogue – my son is now 25 years old, married and about to purchase his first home. He was the best thing that ever happened to me and I can’t imagine life without him.

What felt like a trap then turned out to only be a different path.

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