Those white jagged edges rip through me every time. They we were; three smiling faces ready to go to my cousin’s bar-mitzvah. Yes, were.

The slightly yellowed scene of our small family posing is now in three pieces. I recall the day, twenty-something years later, that my mother tore the beloved family photo, limb from limb. The anger in her pale blue eyes stabbed tiny pins down my spine with each tear of semi-glossed paper.

She ripped herself right out of the photo. Her detached head floating; my dad and I standing close to one another. I know this was not intentional, she meant to rip me out of the family.

I had moved in with her temporarily after my father died. She did not like me around. Six months later when it finally hit her that I would eventually move, she made me leave immediately. Always having to be right, she points a finger at me for abandoning her.

I try to be reasonable, but her serrated words continue to cut deep. I don’t know who is behind those eyes but that woman is not my mom.