Mom
For the memories that shouldn’t be
Analogy often compares parents as canopy to their children. They are the sky above their children’s heads. Even if the world collapses around them, the sun is still up in the children’s world because their parents’ love carries the weight of the reality.
Unfortunately that analogy doesn’t apply to everyone.
Growing up my perception of my mom was that of a thick piece of omnipresent dark cloud. Thunder storms were always imminent, they stroke often and they stroke hard. Sunshine was a rare commodity that only existed in the few occasions when my mom’s presence could be escaped.
Mom was always outraged, for one thing or another. And I was an easy target of her rages.
I remembered this “incidence” that happened when I was in the 4th grade. I was eating my breakfast before school. Dad was up but mom was still in bed. For some reason that I don’t recall now my mom got out of the bed, crashed into the kitchen and raised her hand at me. Luckily there was the table between us so she couldn’t reach me just yet and my dad held her back in time. Too scared to finish my breakfast I bolted to the door.
I had ambivalent feelings towards summer/winter vacations. I would have more free time but also more time had to be spent with mom. And everyday I cringed when it’s time for her to come home.
She didn’t like me. Maybe it’s because I was not a smooth talker like she had wanted. Maybe it’s that I was shy and awkward in front of the strangers. I don’t know. The fact that I had always got good grades at school never amounted to pittance to mom.
I had given up trying to gain her favor since I was little. The efforts were futile so why bother. Instead I tried to stay away from her. Away from her angry gaze and bitter words. No eye contact because that would awake the beast.
Still that couldn’t save me from the nightly agonies. Mom has a habit of “commenting” on the daily nuisances at the wee hours of the morning. My dad had always been capable of screening her sound out but I couldn’t, especially when I was the subject. I remembered the nights when she would go off and I would cry silently, tears soaking up my pillow.
She instilled in me a desert island sense of independence. In the crying nights, determinations were formed and hardened into the stone that I was going to leave home I was going to be a better person I was going to be free of her shadows.
Sometimes I would look at my baby photos. The mom on those photos were smiling and snuggling to the baby. She appeared as loving the baby very much. And I would wonder where did that mom go?
We somehow reconciled after I graduated from college. Now thousands of miles away, we talk on the phone. And I would ask her opinions when I’m in distress.
But the little child in me never for one moment let me forget what a painful childhood I had because of her. I wish I could let go of the dark memories and forgive but I can’t. Memories are stubborn creatures and that little girl in me holds onto her grudge like that’s her last treasure.
If I could go back in time, I would go to the nights of tears and tell the crying child: don’t listen to her. Go to sleep. You will be okay.
Maybe I could have grown up to be a happier person.
