Chapter 13: Return
The conversation with my dad went in a direction I had not expected.
Without hesitation, he wanted to bring my mom home.
I transferred enough money to her for food. She told me she had not eaten in several days.
My dad paid for a hotel room for her and flew out the very next morning to get her.
Once again, I was conflicted.
I was afraid my dad still did not fully accept what was happening with my mom. I worried that he was hoping
bringing her home would somehow be enough—that she would return to the person he knew without the
kind of professional help I believed she needed.
That was how it looked to me, anyway.
I love my dad, and I believe he was trying to do what he thought was right. But I worried that his love for my
mom and his desire to bring his family back together were overriding everything that had already happened.
Yet again, the decision was out of my hands.
All I could do was watch.
When I tried to offer opinions or suggestions, I felt they were often met with resistance or anger.
I heard very little from my parents during their first few days together.
Late into the second day of their drive back to Virginia, I received a text from my dad.
My mom had been contacted by—and was communicating with—someone pretending to be a member of a
band she liked.
It was happening again.
My dad sent me screenshots of a conversation he had with the scammer.
He was angry and arguing with someone who, from my perspective, had nothing to lose by continuing the
conversation.
I told him to stop responding.
Whoever was behind the account was exploiting my mom. Arguing with them would accomplish nothing
except giving them more of his attention and leaving him even more frustrated.
I reminded my dad of what I had been saying all along: I believed my mom needed professional treatment.
We could not fix this ourselves.
She had sent money again.
Whatever was happening was beyond our ability to manage as a family.
My dad told me he needed some time to himself and asked me to talk to her.
My mom told me she understood what was happening now and was working on it.
But I had heard versions of this before.
Why should I believe it now?
I told her that my trust in her had been badly damaged. Too many things she had told us had turned out not
to be true, and from my perspective, nothing had changed enough for me to simply take her word for it.
She told me that our family meant everything to her and that she would do whatever she needed to do to
come back to it.
I saw an opening.
“Has anything you have been doing been to the benefit of anyone but yourself?” I asked.
Her answer came quickly.
No.
I asked her to look at the situation from my perspective.
I had no reason to believe her words anymore because, to me, her actions did not match them.
Then I tried to explain something I had been learning about myself.
I told her that I didn’t believe any of us were inherently more important than everyone else.
I had spent much of my own life trapped inside my wants, my anger, and my perspective. I was beginning to
understand how easy it was to become so consumed by your own life that you stopped seeing the people
sharing it with you.
People sometimes call it “main character syndrome.”
But what was the value of getting everything you wanted if you destroyed your relationships in the process?
Who cared how much clothing you owned?
Who cared whether you saw this band or that band live if, in the end, you had pushed away everyone you
might have shared those experiences with?
What was the point of building a life if you ended up completely alone inside it?
And if you did not treat the people around you well, why should they stay?
Then I turned that same criticism toward myself.
I had spent years looking at what everyone around me was doing wrong. By then, I was beginning to
understand that I had failed people too.
“I don’t think I was ready yet,” I told her. “I don’t think I had evolved enough to emotionally support you
either.”
We continued talking for a while.
I told her that, for now, I thought she should stay away from social media and try to live in the moment.
But more than anything, I continued to believe she needed professional help. There was only so much any
conversation between us could accomplish.
The next day was quiet.
But it was only the calm before the storm.