… about the first time I stood up to my mother.

I was 16 years old in Corpus Christi, Texas and it was warm Friday night in summer. My date (let’s call him Dan) and I were parked in the driveway outside my house at 11 p.m. “talking” (okay, okay, we were making out- we were sixteen after all) when my mother suddenly tapped on the glass. Dan and I quickly sprang apart, acting all innocent as we straightened our clothes. I rolled down the window.

“Your father’s in the hospital - get in the house right now!” She hurried away before I had a chance to fully absorb what she’d told me.

Photo by camilo jimenez on Unsplash

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“Wait here”, I told Dan as I rushed inside to see what was going on. Turned out, my Dad had had pains in his chest earlier that night and an ambulance had been called. He’d been admitted to a hospital downtown and was sedated for now. They’d run more tests in the morning.

“Was it a heart attack?” I screamed as my mind somersaulted. He wasn’t overweight, he wasn’t a drinker, he worked a 9-to-5 management job. He was only 43.

I didn’t trust my mother. She was hiding something. What she said didn’t make sense.

What if he died tonight, all alone in some unfamiliar room, surrounded by strangers?. I had to let him know I loved him.

“I’m going to see him. Dan can drive me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You are not going anywhere tonight. Visiting hours are over. We’ll see him in the morning,” she said and turned away.

“NO! I’m going and you can’t stop me.” I was sobbing now, heart beating in my throat. I couldn’t lose my father - even at that age, I knew he was the glue that held my family together. I needed to see him now.

I needed him to live.

I rushed out the door, coerced Dan into driving me, then bullied my way past the nurses into my father’s room. He was asleep, hooked up to wires, with machines beeping, his face deathly pale. He briefly came around as I stroked his crewcut and told him I was there and I loved him. Then he drifted back to sleep.

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No one ever admitted he’d had a heart attack but I always suspected they were lying, though I could never understand why. He recovered, things returned to normal, and he lived another 6 years before we lost him at 49. He died of a sudden heart attack on his way to the hospital after attending a business dinner. I was several hundred miles away at college and my mother did not tell me until the next day.

That summer night was the first time I can remember defying my mother. The first time I felt the power I had to control my life. The first inkling that I did not have to do what she said but could call my own shots. I can still remember the shocked look on her face. It probably mirrored mine.

I’d crossed the line. I’d become my own person.

After that night, I never again went along with my mother when I didn’t agree with her. I started standing up to her more and more in the two years left in high school and then picked a college far from home to further solidify the split. But that night was the beginning of it all - the first time I felt like an adult with a will of my own.

Can you remember the first time you stood up to your parents? How old were you? How did it make you feel? How did they react? Share your memories in the comments below.

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