Saturday, October 2, 2010

Tough Love

Lately it's been so hard to deal with my mother. Ever since we've had this problem with papa regarding some serious third-party issues, nothing has been the same.

It started around June this year. A couple of days after my birthday I remember getting a text message from mama that something seriously wrong has been going on with papa and that we need to talk about it. When I got back home from work I saw mama seated on the sofa right in front of the altar with her eyes closed bitterness dawned in her. As I got near her I realized that she was crying. Then she spoke to me and broke the news. Papa has another woman. She does not know who, does not know where and moreso when did it started but she knew. The more I listened to her the more I became numb as I stood there looking down at her. I had no clue what to feel about this. I may have said I became numb or frozen in time as she spoke the bitter truth about papa's infidelity but really I don't know how to take this. I think what I did back then was rolled out my eyes and walked away from her. Hey, I was tired!

Anyway, that's not true. I wasn't tired. I was just not feeling anything about the issue. I was like "this is normal!" "everybody's going through this..." "you know you can do something about this..." and that very luck-luster line "everything's gonna be all right!".

Until I learned how weak my mother was. Day in and day out she did nothing but pray then leave the house and come back by dinner time. Later I found out that what she was doing outside the house was not doing her any good. She had been attending bible studies and after that gossiping away about our situation and then rant carelessly about whomever the other woman was to anyone - as in anyone - who would care to listen.

Eventually, I grew tired of her actions. For me they were very childish and stupid. My mother's mother (our grandmother) and so as her own siblings tried to intervene a couple of times regarding this tell-all but it's just no use. When she's out, she tells the whole world about this shameful issue on papa, then when she gets back to us she wouldn't give a damn telling us what's up and she'll act like "you already know what's up! Now let's eat dinner and head off to bed after. No more lounging around." Talking about manipulation. You don't just manipulate people, let alone your kids, when you don't explain to them why the hell you're doing what you're doing. Because if you don't explain, you'll miss the part of being understood. I mean, how will we know there's still something wrong with her, right? Sure, me and my siblings understand the fact that something fragile was already broken. But like I said, we have to take this positively. Well, we did. By "we" I thought, at first, was us all. But I was wrong. Mama drowned in her distraught, in her bitterness and in envy and sad to say none of us were able to pull her back.

Now, everything becomes an issue. Everything that would boil down to her inability to comprehend the facts of the matter or when we can't find any sense in what she's fussing about, she starts blaming papa and what he had done to her. I don't know, but even though I'm with her everyday of my life I don't know if I missed something or if I cracked my head because I don't understand what's become of her. All this stuff that she says has affected her this much has already simmered down a month after it went into full blast. So I don't get it why she's still so upset! My siblings and I were already able to cope up with the problem that even though we were the ones who were so affected and were hard to put in talking to papa that time, we were still able to get up, accept the fact that something went wrong and believed that everything will be fine then we just went on with our own lives. But how come she's still there?

I'm the eldest of three. I'm the toughest and the more experienced when it comes to relationship because my younger sister, Iris, is NBSB, and our youngest, Konics is only twelve. I said a lot to mama on this issue of infidelity and most of them are based on my experiences. I'm not an expert and needless to say I'm no psychiatrist but what I tried to do is make mama know her ways out of her predicament. Sure, this is an issue about only the two of them can solve regarding their love for each other and the marriage that binds them, but this is also about family. About all of us. On simple terms, what I did is help. A help from a daughter to her mother whom she doesn't want to be miserable all her life. This is about love.

The Beatles said "all we need is love". I say aye. And for those people who believe that love has ruined them and that they'd rather stay that way forever, well, look out there punk because I'm pretty sure that you're just not looking at the bigger picture.

No comments: