Friedrich Nietzschehas said: "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." I like to call these moments in a person's life “decisive moments”. Also, like most people, I have had a few of these “defining moments”; probably more than one person should do this. Growing up, I had a hard time accepting one of my "I won't kill you, I'll make you stronger" moments. It was a moment of betrayal and deception, inflicted by a person I trusted completely and completely, with my life. My mother. My mother went through difficult times as a child. Forced to leave the house almost at dawn and return only at nightfall, she was ignored and distanced from her mother. Throughout her childhood, and for much of her young adult life until she ran away, my mother was pushed towards other family members. When my grandmother ran out of family members, she would leave my mother with foster parents for months. She wasn't a bad girl; she didn't behave badly. She just wanted someone who wanted her around, someone who loved her. Unfortunately, the reason my grandmother went to such lengths to get rid of her daughter was for a man. Furthermore, it wasn't just one man, it was all men. When grandmother was single, mother could come into the house and was treated quite well, as a daughter should be treated by her mother. However, for my mother it was sayonara when grandmother saw a man. Given her upbringing, my mother always swore that we, my sister and I, were the most important things in her life and that we always came first. If I could trust anything, I could trust this. My mother and father divorced when I was too young to remember. He got heavily involved in drugs and we never saw him again. I have no memories of him, just a few photos. Shortly after mom's divorce... middle of paper... I finally gave up on trying to protect my mom, when it was so obvious she didn't want to be saved. I took myself and my son out of the equation and filed a complaint against him. No wonder my mother bailed him out of jail. It only took a few years for my mother to get rid of him. Once he did, he started seeing a counselor and working to fix his mistakes with Jelly and me. My sister is clean and sober and my mother sees a really nice guy. I've moved on from this whole experience, but I'll never forget it. I will never forget the betrayal, disloyalty, humiliation and outright deception I suffered at the hands of someone who promised to never hurt me. My defining moment taught me understanding, patience, and that I cannot be angry at someone for who they are; I can only accept them for who they are or not accept them at all.