Once my mom and I were watching a documentary on the Hindenburg crash. The story was at the end and telling how people survived 38 second plummet of the flaming aircraft and the narrator was telling about a mother of three. She had successfully thrown her two boys to safety but could not lift her daughter to throw her the 50 feet from the burning craft. She then left her daughter and jumped to ground breaking her pelvic bone. When the ship hit the ground and someone came to rescue her, she told them to go and get her daughter. Her daughter was rushed to the hospital but her lungs were so badly burned that she didn't even survive the night.




I was shocked. I couldn't imagine jumping from a burning anything knowing that I had left my child on board. I would continue to try to rescue her and we would die together if I couldn't. I said this to my mom who told me I was insane. She said I had no idea what that woman had been through and at least she had tried to get her daughter help. She told me she understood what I was saying but it didn't make any sense. I told her she didn't understand or she wouldn't even be arguing it with me.



That's the difference in the kind of mother I am and the kind of mother I had. What she said to me without saying it is that her life was more important than mine, that she would leave me to die if it meant saving herself. I think that defeats the purpose of even being a mother, no?