Life’s Journey: Part 3 by Eustacia Cutler

Life’s Journey: Part 3 by Eustacia Cutler.

I must have been in my mid-twenties when my mother announced that married life and motherhood were unrewarding. How did I fit into that opinion I wondered? Like many upper-class Victorian women, my mother was socially adept and not without talent, but uneducated and untried. With nothing fulfilling to occupy her mind, she spent her days critiquing me, the college educated daughter who lunged at life from all sides. Now that I was the mother of “a very odd little girl” I didn’t make for good social boasting.

Distressed by my mother’s thinly veiled disapproval, I went to my great-aunt Ruby whose ninety years had yet to dull her sharp wits and trustworthy appraisal of life. Aunt Ruby heard me out, and remarked tartly “Well I always thought your mother was a fool. Thrown away her talents.”

Taking in Aunt Ruby’s swift truth, I realized with a start that I’d judged Temple’s withdrawal from me as the same as my
need to escape my mother. If Temple didn’t want me, I’d keep my distance. But Temple was only a baby. Then came an appalling thought: am I acting like a baby? Guilt grabbed hold of me. I confessed it to Aunt Ruby. “Rubbish” said Aunt Ruby. “Guilt is useless and irrelevant. If you really think you’re guilty through a neglect you haven’t even understood, then figure out right now how to help Temple. And use your guilt to fire yourself up to do it.”