Our Stories
Gale's Story
My story... hmmm, it seems like a long and convoluted one. My story
keeps growing and changing on many dimensions. So here is my story, one
that I have played over and over in my head and told hundreds of times,
often to anyone who would stay still long enough to listen. Thankfully they
listened, because telling my story has released the pain.
My mother died on February 17, 1974. She was 46 and I was 16. We had just
moved to Ft. Lauderdale from New York six weeks earlier. We had little to
no warning, liver cancer acts swiftly. Up until that moment in time I had
been a child of privilege in every way. With my mother's death my father
ceased to be. He withdrew in himself, forgot he had a daughter, rarely
spoke of my mother, and left me as if he had died too. He remarried
quickly, and very quickly I was tossed aside both literally and
figuratively. At 16 I was on the street, alone, in a new state, no family
no friends.
I am now 46 years old. This August I will finally be older then my mother.
The last milestone in my 30 years of recovery from the death of my mom. I
have survived because of my mom. She left me strong. I didn't know it at
the time, but she had prepared me well. She believed in me, so I re-learned
to believe in me. She was educated, so I sought an education. She was a
loving woman, and I love my family tremendously. She loved my dad, so I
learned to forgive him.
There are hundreds of pages of details I could write about my story, some of
them sad, a lot of them funny, and some that would add to some one else's
recovery. But for me the real story is about forgiveness. I forgave my mom
for dying. I forgave my dad for leaving me. I forgave myself for learning
lessons the hard way.
I am a teacher and I run a small group with my high school students who they
themselves are motherless daughters, and I am teaching them the art of
forgiveness. I would love to talk to anyone who would care to talk to me.
© Gale Christensen
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