Leaving Home (from the archive)

On the day I left home mother embraced me so hard that three of my ribs snapped and I had to stay for a further four months to recover. 

During my bedridden captivity she tried to equip me for independent living by giving me the benefit of her own experiences. But as she'd spent her entire adult life as a U-boat commander in the Norwegian Navy and I was planning to open a Pork Pie shop, I found no practical use for anything she said. Not least because I don't speak Norwegian. 

When finally I was well enough to leave she wasn't there to see me go.

Perhaps the emotion of seeing her last child leaving the nest was too much for her. Maybe I'd been such a disappointment to her that she couldn't bear to be near me. Or possibly it was the fact that I ran away secretly in the middle of the night whilst she was asleep. 

I guess I'll never know for sure.