Thirteen
I met mother today for the first time in years. The journey that took me to Ingleburn was an instant replay of rage, blame, recrimination and acrimony.Sitting face to face, I saw that mother hadn't changed much at all. It seemed as if her vitroil had preserved her in time. Our meeting was one of those dialogues arranged by mediators. K's sister had invited me up again. This time however, the invitation wasn't an option: "Why don't you come visit? Mother will be here."
With the usual pleasentries parcelled, we began an unfurling of history "since then". Not that I needed going into much detail. Mother had known full well everything I had done "since then" and our lead up to pain was done without fanfare. Our exchange was brutally frank.
Mother wanted me to live out my life never knowing love or companionship ever again, fitting punishment for my stupidity those many years ago. Mother apologized for shutting me out when it felt so right to blame and point fingers. As we convulsed from loss, it occurred to neither of us that healing was more essential than the acrimony being dished out.
Hate kept mother going. I admitted that at times, it seemed that I had been cursed. My relationships since K's death have been a mixed bag of fulfilment and failure. Telling mother about my life, it somehow seemed that I had done alright in spite of it.
So why the thaw now? Reading K's diary for the first time in a decade, a diary I didn't know about, mother realized that all she remembered was how much she hated me. She had blocked out all the memories of what made loving her daughter so fulfilling. It was just too painful. In an about face of amazing strength, mother made the near impossible choice to claw back memories of how happy K was and how loved she was by so many people. Mother thought it time to make peace with me.
And what of this boy here? I sought no help. I grappled with my guilt. I lived my pain. For what we could have had, it was a lifetime of happiness evaporated before my very eyes. It was the crushing realization that I could not give anything at all to bring her back. For as simple a choice of not using the overhead crossing that night, the price I paid was a lifetime. K was my friend, my companion, my lover, my adversary. She challenged me. She showed me a different way. She made me smile. K was one of a kind, ahead of her time in so many ways. I loved her so.
It's a hell of a thing for a man to bury the woman he loves. Guilt and pain are feelings I have come to know all too well. They have been the subject of my life for a long time. My friends, to their misguided credit, have tried to help me find 'closure' to this terrible chapter of my life. However the thought of coming to a point when I would no longer think of K was obscene to me. There was no way around what I was feeling. It was a journey that I had to go through alone. Along the way, I experienced despair, hopelessness and contemplated suicide.
I accepted that I would be a changed person. That some part, maybe the best part of me, would have been cut out and buried with her. So what was left, I wondered? What part of myself would I have left to give the next woman who shares my life? Now wouldn't that be interesting?
So here we are. Mother wants to begin a new chapter with me in it. How would this all play out, I wonder. After being shut out for so long, status-quo would have been simpler and so reassuringly familiar.
Mother lost her daughter thirteen years ago. Would she gain a son today?
posted by Teutoburg @ 7:59 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home