In amidst the chaos of suddenly losing my grand father, I caught a flight and went to my family's home in Sri Lanka, to be near them. My grandmother and dad were there, including the rest of the relatives, all struck with grief; each and everyone, running around attending to funeral responsibilities, a good facade and a distraction to cope.
Took my a couple days but it was when things slowed down a bit, when I was walking past the family photos on the walls that I've seen a million times, I saw a photo of my mom when she was a toddler. Maybe 1 or 2 years old.
She was busy with work and studies in Australia, and even though she wanted to come say farewell to her father-in-law, she couldn't on shortnotice. But she kept in touch with everyone throughout the funeral and her brother, my uncle, made sure to send her photos and videos of the whole proceedings. I'm sure that brought her some comfort.
But this little girl, who was staring back at me in the photo in fright, struck a different chord in me in comparison to the woman that I call my mother. This little girl, probably scared of the camera and the photographer both, sits shirtless on some table in some studio, stares just to the right of the camera in black and white, with a vintage tan hue. This little girl, looks so innocent with her pretty eyes, scared, yet fearless, for she doesn't know fear yet, is very much still getting to know her existence, for it isn't a camera and a camera man that I scary in this world for her, it is quite literally everything that she is yet to encounter.
This little girl, then grows up to be a bright student, a talented leader and a creative at her school, simultaneously looks after both her younger brothers, for both their parents were absent in the childhood in different ways, from time to time, for different reasons. And these times, she recollects, with casual stories of troubling times and emotional neglect, without even realising that her experiences are, infact, emotional neglect.
This bright student then falls in love with my father, and soon falls pregnant with me and gets married. A caesarean surgery brings me to life, and another little boy 3 years after that, and finally a little girl, 10 years my junior. All caesarean births, neither pregnancy physically or financially easy to say the least.
Our family then migrates to Australia, one by one, with me in my late teens, the stress of that move becomes the strain that makes us disband, my mom and sister the closest to each other out of all of us.
And make no mistake, only fiction is ever that simple, and our story never was, for this in fact, is factual; My whole childhood I experienced so much unnecessary emotional pain in the hands of both my parents, that a psychologist would nickname: abuse.
And without even exploring the personality of my father, my intention of concluding that chapter of my life is two fold: that I, at my current point in life, is actively healing from all that and making room for feelings of connectedness away from all that, and no matter what my parents did to me, virtually all that was mere re-enactments and metaphors of their own pain that they themselves have previously endured and even though no amount of healing from either part could ever forgive or justify all that, with time I am confident that I atleast do understand the reasons behind their broken hearts.
So this mother, of mine the little girl in the photo stating back at me, I wonder if she ever knew. The pain she will go through, not just in life, also in the hands of her own family, and later her own husband. And I wonder, if she ever thought that she will be successful to the extent that she has been, after all the sacrifices she's made for her family without compromise. I wonder if she ever knew the mistakes that she will undoubtedly end up making, and wonder, if she end up forgiving herself.
For in a cruel world with really bad people, I no longer see her as evil, she is only hurt. Even though I see her as responsible for her actions and am still struggling in my heart to cope with my memories of our experiences in the past, I infact, do not waste much time of mine seeing her at fault. I feel quite preoccupied with living my own and leaving her to do her own healing and maybe that's why seeing this photo of this little girl caught me off guard.
So yes, I truly do hope she finds ease and comfort in her life, and even joy, for this woman was once a little girl, worthy of nothing but love and only received responsibilities and blaim instead I can only wish her a lack, in both, and I truly pray that happiness comes her way, endlessly. At this point in my life, I am not able to see a significant amount of her joy or well-being as a burden of my own, but I am wishing more and more for her, with no bounds, for even though I do question a presence of love for her in my heart, I am almost certain have no limit for the amount of forgiveness that I have for her and I'm sure the day she forgives herself, then she'll feel mine too.
BS
Comments
Post a Comment