Mine was to leave my family, my whole family, in order to be away from my mother.
We were never close, and she was emotionally abusive. When she became physically abusive (after I was married and we began trying for a child), I had to put a foot down. This meant breaking off contact with her, with my stepfather, her family, his family, and my church (I was a fairly high-ranking member of youth leadership). Worst of all, was leaving my baby sister. I love her dearly and have a huge burden for her, though she’s never felt as close to me, I’m sure. She favors our brother, who is frankly too self absorbed to care for her like I do.
I had hoped to “save” her – to stop her from becoming the latest generation of my mom’s family – all lazy, self-righteous, chain-smoking, alcoholic women with no education and dead-end jobs (if they have jobs at all), bouncing to whatever man will pay their way through life. I kept in touch with her online, tried to be a good influence from afar…
It’s been almost three years. I recently saw my sister for the first time since that day, and she broke my heart. It was like seeing my mom again. She even sounded like her. She insulted my son (“He’s not really a person”), and talked about how much she missed our brother (gone a mere few months – it’s been three years since she’d seen me!), and moaned “awk-ward…” when I tried to give her a hug.
Did I make the right choice? I don’t know. I know I had to be away from my mom, or one of us was going to kill the other, but I still wish I could have saved my sister, too. Would she even want to be saved?