Me!
Why?
Two weeks have passed since YS’s and my mom’s visit here. Everyone had been overjoyed and looking forward to that moment. I had begged and begged for my mom, Lola, to come. It took her more than 7 years to finally visit. Several reasons stopped her, one of which was because of her health issues. That aside, Lola finally agreed to come. I was so delighted!
Everything was honky-dory with the visit. But like an old wart that won’t go away, being together for sometime, revives old dysfunctional feelings. Why is it that alot of times it’s the old pent-up feelings that come up more than the good feelings with family relationships?
I had romanticized how mom will be happy, I will be happy and the rest of the family also happy with such visit. But face to face with that notion, reality bites.
Somehow……
(Gosh, I hope YS won’t show this blog to mom for this next statement I make.) I have this feeling that at my mom’s age and health issues, she may not last that long. I hate to discuss that taboo word: DEATH, and yet that’s what I always think about; not obsessively I’d hope. Okay, yes I do think about it obsessively, how to face it myself, to lose family members and even friends to such a final moment.
Anyway, I snapped at my mom for being indecisive about cooking dinner. All along the time that she and YS were cooking for me and my family, I willingly gave up kitchen duty to both of them. I patiently waited for food to come my plate. That the least I could show was feeling of gratefulness, not only for the visit but for their willingness to prepare food that I so love.
‘Impatience’ was not the word I’d be proud of at that moment. On the last night of their visit, I lost all patience. I started yelling at Lola. And you’d think I should know better than to yell when the poor person already was fixing you dinner. I was so mad that the two boys didn’t dare complain about the okra dish. I’m sure they would have turned up their noses just by looking at it.
But it’s not only impatience that was the culprit, it was also of feelings past, with exactly the same incident when I thought how my mom was intolerant with us, with me, over something that I didn’t quite get, or do, or couldn’t make the right decision, etc.. She’d yell and belittle us.
I’d swear that when I grew up, I’d never do what she did. And here I was, doing EXACTLY the same act. Only now, the recipient is my mom. What comes around goes around, as the saying goes. I feel rotten. But then I ask myself that when mom was doing such act, did she ever feel rotten after that? I asked that question because she never came up to apologize. Apology was never a comfortable word around the house when we were growing up. Neither hugs nor kisses.
I feel rotten because I allowed this negative attitude to take control of me, now in the present, when it should have been buried in the past, when I should know better than to repeat it. It took me two weeks to even bring the subject up.
I feel rotten because it took me this long to face up to it. Rotten moments that should never happen. Rotten moments can only heal when there’s apology. It is time, even how late, for me to call Mom and apologize here and now.
Finally, It’s amazing that mothers have a bond with their children, a bond that can either be strong, weak or none at all. The children still try to measure up to the parents, especially the Mom; no matter what the outcome of one’s upbringing has become.
Old wounds leave scars that never heal especially when the scars are emotional and spun from dysfunctional memories. While it is true that as we get older we tend to “forget” hurtful memories as we create our own with people we encounter in our adult life, feelings of anxiety and anger do come back when old habits resurface. I think the only closure we need does not even come from an “apology” but in knowing that while we have moved on, a parent also has “grown” with us. Seeing that old habits and patterns never improved, we begin to feel transported back to those childhood days when we were trapped in a setting where we didn’t have a voice, couldn’t speak and more than that, didn’t have the freedom to express ourselves. Then we lash out (much to our embarassment and disgrace) on the parent in an apparent defensive state. We thought we have grown, having grown children of our own, and yet when we see the parent acting the very same way she did more than 40 years ago, we are disgusted and fear that we have never really moved on. The only closure I can give myself is to diligently and consciously make an effort to NOT BE LIKE MOM to my daughter. We will always be bonded to our parents, good or bad, and it is the parent’s responsibility to create a good and pleasant bond.
While you may still linger in feeling quirky about “last night”, it sure did feel right to be able to express your frustration, didn’t it? It will still be a challenge to say what you want to say in a more relaxed manner especially when the “parent” still refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing though. But darn, we just have to say it!