My name is Matteo. I grew up believing I had a simple, happy childhood. Through my young eyes, our small family felt like a warm, safe place, fragile but full of love. My mother, Clara, stayed at home to care for me, while my father, Lorenzo, ran a modest workshop in a quiet Tuscan village called Borgo San Vito. I was their only child, and I truly believed our peaceful world would last forever.
Then one day, everything shattered like glass. My father lost his job—suddenly, without warning. I didn’t understand what it meant at the time, but I saw how it changed him. His voice grew quieter, his laughter faded, and a heavy silence settled over him. He found work again, but the money began disappearing from our lives, like autumn leaves swept away by the wind. At night, I would lie under the covers, trembling as the sounds of shouting and breaking dishes filled the house. My mother’s voice, once soothing, became sharp. My father’s, tired. I prayed for the storm to pass.
But it didn’t pass—it only grew worse. One day, Dad discovered that Mom had been secretly seeing someone else. That was the blow that brought everything crashing down. Our home became a battlefield. The arguments turned to screaming, the tears never stopped, and then came the sound of the door slamming behind Dad as he walked away. He left me with her, among the emotional wreckage. I missed him so much it hurt to breathe. I asked my mother again and again to take me to him. She snapped back with venom in her voice, blaming him for everything. “He left us! He’s nothing but a coward!” she spat. But her words couldn’t kill the longing in my heart.
One cold morning, something changed. She smiled—a strange, unfamiliar smile—and told me to pack my things. “We’re going to the sea,” she said. I couldn’t believe it. The sea! It sounded like a dream, a magical escape. She hurriedly stuffed clothes into a battered old suitcase. I wanted to bring my toy trains, but she stopped me. “We’ll get new ones,” she promised. I believed her. Of course I did—she was my mother.
At the bus station, she bought tickets and told me we had a little time. We boarded a rickety bus that groaned with every turn. I stared out the grimy window, imagining waves and castles made of sand. The bus finally stopped in front of an old building with crumbling walls and dim windows. She pointed to a bench and said, “Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment. I’m getting you an ice cream.”
I sat down, excited and trusting.
But she didn’t come back.
Time dragged on. The sun went down. The wind grew colder. I waited and waited, calling her name, my voice swallowed by the night. I watched the windows, hoping to see her shadow. But nothing. Fear gripped me, and my small body shivered on that hard wooden bench. Eventually, I cried myself to sleep.
When I opened my eyes, I was no longer outside. I was in a bed, in a strange, unfamiliar room. I thought Mom had come back and taken me somewhere new. I called out for her.
The door opened, but it wasn’t her.
It was my father.
Behind him stood a woman I didn’t know. I jumped out of bed, heart pounding. “Where’s Mom?” I cried. “She left to get me ice cream. She said she’d come back. Where is she?”
Dad came over and sat beside me, his face filled with a pain I didn’t understand. He held my hand gently. Then he said the words that would scar me forever.
“She left you, Matteo. She’s not coming back.”
I couldn’t believe it. Mothers don’t leave their children. I shouted at him, told him he was lying. She promised the sea. But he pulled me close, and repeated it softly. “She’s gone, son.”
Years went by. Dad and I moved to Positano, a village by the sea where the waves crashed against the cliffs in endless rhythm. The woman who had been with him was Giulia. She was kind and patient. At first, I kept her at a distance, still guarding the broken pieces of my trust. But over time, I began to see her as my true mother—not the one who had abandoned me, but the one who stayed. The one who loved. A little sister, Sofia, was born. And for the first time, I felt what a family was meant to be—safe, gentle, whole.
As I grew older, Dad told me more. He said my mother called him the morning after leaving me. She told him where to find me and then hung up. No explanation. Just instructions. Her parental rights were taken away. She disappeared. I never knew where she went.
Life moved on. I studied hard, graduated with honors, and got a good job. My career took off, and eventually, I was able to buy my own place. Dad and Giulia helped me furnish it. It was small but beautiful, right in the heart of Positano.
One rainy evening, I came home from work and saw someone sitting on a bench outside my building. Something in the way the figure sat made my stomach twist. As I got closer, she looked up and said my name.
“Matteo,” she whispered. “I’m your mother.”
I froze.
She looked like a shadow of a person I had once known, older, worn down by time. My heart raced. I couldn’t understand why she was there—why now, after all these years?
I called Dad and Giulia.
They arrived quickly, their presence grounding me. Dad looked at me and said, “It’s your choice. Only you can decide if she belongs in your life.”
I looked at her—this woman who had vanished into the night and left a child waiting on a bench. I felt no anger, no warmth. Just emptiness.
The doorbell rang. Dad went to answer it. She followed him inside.
That was the moment I broke.
“You’re not my mother,” I said, my voice shaking. “I already have a mother and a father—the ones who raised me, stayed with me, loved me. I don’t know who you are anymore. You made a choice. Now live with it. Leave. And don’t come back. If you do, I’ll call the police.”
She sobbed, but I didn’t move. I didn’t flinch. She left, and I watched her fade into the night like a ghost.
Then I turned to Dad and Giulia. I wrapped my arms around them with everything I had inside me.
“I love you,” I said. “Thank you—for never leaving.”
That woman outside was just a memory now, a chapter long closed.
To every parent out there—don’t abandon your child. They didn’t ask to be here. You brought them into this world. They deserve love. They deserve presence. They deserve everything you can give.
I know that better than anyone.