The day my mother left, she didn’t slam the door.

She didn’t scream.She didn’t throw anythingShe didn’t even cry in front of me.

She just packed two suitcases in the early morning while the sky was still gray, kissed my forehead, and said, “Be strong.”

I was nine years old.

Children that age don’t understand adult unhappiness. We only understand presence and absence.

That morning, absence moved into our house and never really left.

At first, I thought she was going on a trip. Maybe a few days. Maybe a week. I waited for her call. I waited for her voice.

Instead, I heard my father pacing the living room, speaking in low, tense tones on the phone.

She needs time,” he told relatives. “It’s complicated.”

Complicated.

That word became the explanation for everything.

Why she wasn’t at school meetings.Why she didn’t answer my birthday call.
Why there was suddenly an empty closet in their bedroom.

Later, I found out she had fallen in love with someone else.

That’s how adults described it — softly, almost romantically.

But to me, it felt like abandonment.

Love had taken her away from me.

For months, I lived in a strange in-between space.

I missed her fiercely.I hated her fiercely.Sometimes both in the same hour.

At school, when teachers asked us to draw our families, I hesitated. Should I include her? If I did, was I lying? If I didn’t, was I erasing her?

My father tried his best.

He learned how to braid my hair from online videos. He burned dinners but pretended they tasted fine. He attended parent-teacher meetings alone, sitting in small chairs meant for two.

But he was grieving too.

Sometimes at night, I heard him crying in the bathroom with the water running.

I didn’t know who to comfort.

At ten years old, I became quieter. More observant. I stopped asking when she was coming back.

The first time she called after months of silence, my hands trembled.

Hi, sweetheart,” she said, her voice too cheerful.

I didn’t know what to say.

Hi?Why did you leave?Do you love him more than me?

Instead, I said, “When are you coming home?”

There was a pause.

I’m not coming back,” she replied gently.

Gently.

As if softness could cushion the impact of those words.

After the call, I locked myself in my room and screamed into a pillow. Not because I didn’t understand. But because I finally did.

She had chosen a new life.

And I wasn’t in it.

Growing up without a mother is not just about missing hugs or packed lunches.

It’s about missing guidance during the moments you need it most.

When I got my first period, I didn’t know who to tell. I stood awkwardly in the supermarket aisle, staring at rows of products, pretending I understood what I was looking at.When I had my first heartbreak at sixteen, I wanted to cry into someone’s arms and ask, “Is this normal?” Instead, I googled advice at 2 a.m.

I told myself I didn’t need her.

That I was strong. Independent. Fine.

But deep down, I carried a quiet question:

If your own mother can leave, who stays?

That question followed me into friendships and relationships.

If someone didn’t reply quickly, I assumed they were losing interest.If someone seemed distant, I prepared myself for goodbye.I never fully relaxed into love because I believed departure was inevitable.

I became good at detachment.

Leave before they leave you.Care less.Expect less.

But pretending not to care is exhausting.

When I was twenty-one, I saw her again.

She had remarried and moved to another city. I agreed to meet her out of curiosity more than longing.

She looked older. Softer somehow. Nervous.

For a moment, we just stared at each other across the café table.

“You’ve grown up,” she said.

You missed it, I thought.

Instead, I nodded.

The conversation was awkward at first. Small talk. Safe topics. Weather. Work. Neutral territory.

Then I asked the question that had been living inside me for years.

“Why did you leave me?”

Not “Why did you leave Dad?”

Why did you leave me?

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I didn’t leave you,” she said quickly. “I left a marriage that was suffocating me.”

“But you left the house,” I replied. “And I was in it.”

Silence.

She took a deep breath.

“I was drowning,” she admitted. “I felt invisible. Unhappy. Trapped. I thought if I didn’t leave, I would lose myself completely.”

Her honesty startled me.

For years, I had painted her as selfish. Heartless. Cruel.

Now I was looking at a woman who had been desperate.

“But I was a child,” I said, my voice breaking. “I needed you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “And that’s the guilt I carry every day.”

Guilt.

Another inheritance from that decision.

We talked for hours that afternoon. About her loneliness. About my anger. About the years we both spent pretending the other was fine.

I realized something painful:

She hadn’t left because she didn’t love me.

She left because she didn’t know how to stay without breaking herself.

That understanding didn’t erase the damage.

It didn’t give me back the school plays she missed or the nights I cried alone.

But it added complexity to a story I had simplified into betrayal.

Parents are human before they are parents.

They have breaking points.
They make selfish choices.
They chase survival in ways that hurt others.

I don’t excuse what she did.

But I no longer carry it as proof that I was unlovable.

Her leaving was about her limits.

Not my worth.

Our relationship now is cautious but real. We don’t pretend the past didn’t happen. We don’t force closeness. We build it slowly — phone calls, occasional visits, honest conversations.

Sometimes, I still feel a sting when I see mothers and daughters laughing effortlessly together.

There will always be a version of childhood I didn’t get.

But I am no longer that nine-year-old waiting at the window.

I have built stability in other ways — through friends who feel like family, through therapy, through learning to mother myself in moments of doubt.

When I make mistakes, I speak gently to myself.
When I feel abandoned, I remind myself who stayed — my father, my friends, myself.

The day my mother left changed the shape of my life.

It taught me that love can coexist with failure.
That adults can be both victims and perpetrators.
That forgiveness is not forgetting — it’s releasing yourself from constant resentment.

If I ever have children, I don’t promise to be perfect.

But I promise this:

If I need to leave a room, a marriage, or a version of myself to survive,
I will never leave them wondering if they were the reason.

Because no child should grow up believing they were not enough to make someone stay.

I used to think her departure defined me.

Now I know it was just one chapter.

And I am still writing the rest.