Changing Places

For as long as I can remember I, as many kids do, have looked upon my mother as a matriarch. She is the foundation of my family. I am the youngest of 8 children. If I, or any of my siblings, ever had so much as a sniffle Mother was at our side, tissue in one hand, thermometer in the other, ready to nurse us back to perfect health. I have always seen Mother as the strongest most competent woman on the planet. The day I walked into her hospital room and saw my very pale, very small, very weak mother lying in her bed, my whole life changed. My place in my family was forever altered. I finally understood my mother’s tears as she nursed my grandmother when she would take ill. And for the first time in my entire life I saw my father as a vulnerable, lost individual.
As the baby of the family I will forever be a spoiled brat. An irresponsible little girl who needs her brothers, sister, mother and father to lead her through life. There is no fathomable reason why I would be able to ac...