{"id":14261,"date":"2025-05-12T01:49:47","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T01:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=14261"},"modified":"2025-05-12T06:14:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T06:14:33","slug":"perspective-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?p=14261","title":{"rendered":"PERSPECTIVE &#038; GRACE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Happy Mother\u2019s Day. I don\u2019t have many photos of my mother\u2014she was shy about cameras, always insecure and self-conscious. Corona. That&#8217;s her in the middle. I wonder what I&#8217;m holding\u2026 a candle? A wand? It was taken in either Charleswood or Transcona, Manitoba\u2014we moved a lot. Back when coffee tables were laden with ashtrays and doilies. We were dressed for church, my sister&#8217;s christening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img data-attachment-id=\"14262\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/?attachment_id=14262\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?fit=1200%2C920\" data-orig-size=\"1200,920\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1503676239&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"CoronaInTheMiddle\" data-image-description=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?fit=300%2C230\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?fit=604%2C463\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"604\" height=\"463\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?resize=604%2C463\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?w=1200 1200w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?resize=300%2C230 300w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?resize=1024%2C785 1024w, https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/CoronaInTheMiddle.jpeg?resize=768%2C589 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 604px) 100vw, 604px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I always feel conflicted about this day. I loved my mother, of course\u2014she\u2019s the only mother I\u2019ll ever have\u2014but she was not easy to love. Her childhood was traumatic, and that pain twisted her. My sisters and I survived the generational abuse, just as she had. But her deepest betrayal was the lifelong lie about my paternity. That deception cost me a relationship with a good father I would have loved\u2014one who would have loved me back. Protected me. I\u2019ve written about it here before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Maybe that\u2019s why I waited so long to become a mother myself. Life is complicated. But I\u2019m here now, blessed to be a mom, and the experience has provided something rare: perspective and grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy Mother\u2019s Day. I don\u2019t have many photos of my mother\u2014she was shy about cameras, always insecure and self-conscious. Corona. That&#8217;s her in the middle. I wonder what I&#8217;m holding\u2026 a candle? A wand? It was taken in either Charleswood or Transcona, Manitoba\u2014we moved a lot. Back when coffee tables were laden with ashtrays and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14261"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14261"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14266,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14261\/revisions\/14266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heatherhaley.com\/hh2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}