When I was 6, Mom volunteered at a soup kitchen. I remember her taking me with her every week. She was my idol. Then one day, when I was 15, the doorbell rang. There were 2 serious-looking men who asked her to come with them. I discovered that all those years she’d been hiding something big from me. My mom wasn’t just volunteering out of kindness. She was on parole, serving community hours for a crime she’d committed when she was younger. It shattered me to know the person I admired most had a secret past.
That night, I sat in my room for hours, hugging the stuffed bear she’d given me when I was little. My mind kept spinning in circles, trying to fit this new image of Mom with the one who read bedtime stories and made pancakes shaped like hearts. It felt like I’d lost her, even though she was still alive somewhere out there.