Reply #84: huge grain of salt [View All]

My mother often declared that ham is my favorite meal. It is not. It never has been. I never said it was. I corrected her repeatedly. It mattered not. She decided what my favorite food was, period, end of story.

The fact is, people lie. Mother's lie, to themselves and to others. And sometimes children lie to their mothers, sometimes just to get them to stfu.

Maybe she didn't like to ski and maybe she did. We don't know that for a fact. Maybe she told her mother she didn't like to ski or maybe her mother imagined it. Maybe she told her mother she didn't like to ski just to get her mother to stfu about how dangerous skiing is. We don't know that. All we really know about their relationship is that she chose to live on a different continent from her mother. In the world of psychology and social workers, that can mean a lot. Or not.

We do know that she took a skiing lesson, chose not to wear a helmet (with one or both son's watching, to boot), refused an ambulance, and died as a result.

It is very, very sad because it was very preventable. But we all make bad choices sometimes, and sometimes they catch up with us.