The best advice my mother ever gave me all started when one day I called my wife at work to say hello. She told me that she was moving out because she was tired of being with me. Therefore, I left work as I always did whenever she was upset and threatened to leave. When I arrived at her place of employment, she had not changed her mind at all. Even begging and pleading with her did not help; she had her mind made up and she was sticking with it. To me, it seemed as if my life was ending, and she did not even care. Suddenly, every moment that we had shared was flashing in my mind, and our two children were going to have to go through what I went through twenty years earlier. Fina

lly, I gave up the begging and went home to sit and reflect on the afternoon's events. At four-thirty p.m. I had to leave and pick the kids from daycare. When I picked up our children, I was even more depressed than I was before; it felt as if my heart was being ripped out, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I could not believe how easy it was, I could have had her back two days earlier if I had just listened to my mother. Now, our marriage is doing very well; we still have disagreements as with any relationship, but nowhere near as terrible. It's funny; I could have bypassed a large number of bad situations in my life if I had just listened to my mother when she said, "That mother always knows best."

I tried to spend as much quality time with the kids as I could without letting on that something was wrong. Unfortunately, my oldest son, who was four at the time, could see right through me. He kept asking me what was wrong, and I did not know what to tell him except that I was very sad, and he seemed to understand that explanation. After my wife got off work, she came to pick up the children and I was still holding on to a little strand of hope that she would change her mind. She came in, grabbed a few things, put the kids in her car and then proceeded to leave. As she drove away, I began to cry and wonder what was I going to do now. I was used to having my wife and kids around all of the time. Now they were not there, and I did not know what to do. I didn't have any friends to call or go spend time with to get my mind off the days events, so I did the only thing I could do, call my mother. She told me that everything was going to be okay, and that she would come back, but I had to leave her alone and stop begging her to come back. That was the last thing I wanted to hear at that time, so I didn't listen to her. After talking with my mother, I tried to go to sleep, but I was too upset and had too many issues on my mind. Every so often, a car would drive by, and I would look out the window to see if it was my wife and children, but it never was.

The next day I was reluctant to go to work, but I didn't have a choice because I still had

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Approximate Word count = 1469
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)