My mom died when I was in middle school. She was the taskmaster parent and my dad treated me basically like a roommate, so I was way more independent in high school and beyond than I would have been if she had lived. I see the ghost of the timeline in which things were different. I think that happens for any huge changes in life.

I’m an immigrant in Germany and moved here about a decade after I studied abroad here. I don’t think I would have been allowed/able to study abroad, especially under the circumstances (I failed German, after getting a 95 and a 98 on the midterm and final, respectively, because I didn’t do the homework), so I don’t think I would have been able to come here and become a German as a second language teacher without prior immersion. My life would look very different, and I’d probably be leaning into my Spanish a lot more to try to emigrate to a Spanish speaking country, if I were even thinking about leaving.

My mom was a republican, but I don’t know if she would have followed my dad down the Fox News wormhole or if she would have pulled him out of it. I think if she snapped out of it, but couldn’t snap him out of the maga hypnosis, she might have left him, which would probably have set my dad on a very unpleasant path.