The Guilt of Not Being There

I saw a Filipino advertisement this morning while scrolling through Instagram about a single mum who is a nurse and her son, Mikey. The little boy is left to his own devices to get ready for school, do a school project and even rehearse his lines for a fancy-dress competition, without his mother because she keeps getting called in for ad hoc duties due to the nature of her job.

Other mums who actually pick up and accompany their children to school keep passing remarks at him, calling him "poor boy", "Where is your mother?", "Your shirt buttons aren't done properly. How can you go to school like this?" and so on.

By the end of his fancy-dress competition, his overworked mother actually makes it to school to pick him up, and they are seen embracing each other in a tight hug after an entire day of absence, starting from his breakfast onwards.

It hit me so hard because I realised that when my boy was just a little over three years old, I had to rejoin work, and he had to fend for himself emotionally, without a mother who was truly present.

Of course, my parents really stepped in during that time to raise him, while I was just a corporate slave drowning myself in work, simply to distract myself from the grief of losing my husband.

I wasn't there for my boy emotionally when he needed me the most because I wasn't there for myself. I wallowed in so much self-pity that I couldn't see beyond my own nose. I couldn't even function as a whole human being. How could I possibly be a mother?

I was pretty useless for a good year. Maybe two.

The guilt of being emotionally absent from my three-year-old is something that kills me even now. Which is probably why I go out of my way today to entertain him, because I see the years I lost with him.

I hope he forgives me.

Or, better yet, I hope he doesn't remember those mad, grief-filled days of mine when I would wake up screaming from an afternoon nap.