Forgotten, yet still Festering

"You step one more toe out of line, I swear to God I will kill you!"

The woman's angry words rang with a stern tone of frustration that rose up peculiar feelings inside of me. I looked up from the napkin I was scribbling and scratching the points of my speech on.

Sure enough. The words were not directed at me but they were familiar all the same.

At this time of the day, there weren't all that many passengers on this particular bus and from where I was sitting, I had a good view of a red faced woman spouting words of apology while frantically digging into her heavy tote shoulder bag for a tissue to hand over to the neatly dressed woman whose steel gray pencil skirt now had a dark stain.  

And in the midst of it all, a small wide eyed, open mouthed little girl wearing pigtails, holding onto a canteen that had presumably been filled to the brim with hot chocolate by her mother earlier that day.

The weary looking office lady graciously accepted the tissue, contorting her face into a smile of sympathetic grimace, "kids, am I right? Got five of them myself."

"Oh, they're a joy and a terror like I've never known, that's for sure." The woman agreed, relieved now that she knew they were both members of this exclusive and sometimes strange society known as the Motherhood. 

The conversation continued on, "How old are yours?.…they get any smarter as they grow older though?… One time I found her trying to…"

Their voices slowly mixed then came in bits and pieces as I watched this exchange of growing camaraderie between these two women who were strangers. All at the expense of their kids, one of whom was sitting right there, head bowed but still very much listening to their every word.

I went back to considering my napkin of tiny scrawls and slashes that I had been trying to put together since that call mid breakfast when I had been enjoying a nice warm cup of coffee until my Aunt informed me at the last minute she'd thought I would be the one to handle the eulogy. 

"I'm quite busy at my end, handling the preparations, dear." She'd said in clipped tones, "How could you think I would have the time to write an eulogy?"

When she put it like that how could I say no? And I got the pointed sense that if I had said so, I would have been immediately labelled as a bad daughter. Besides it was fair enough that I be given the task to give the eulogy since I practically made little to no contribution to this event.

Only I couldn't seem to put down a word, any word, that seemed to fit the particular woman that had been my mother. 

Supportive? Scratch.

Loving? Scratch! 

Attentive? Double scratch!

No. The napkin crumpled in my hands. These were just the things I sometimes wished my mother had been.

I sucked in a slow breath. But had she really been that bad of a mother for me to merit making those wishes? 

I closed my eyes, trying to picture it. That exact time and moment when my mother had said those hurtful words to me, only to come up with a failure to recall. Perhaps it was just a one time occurrence so painful my mind is forbidding me access to the details? Or perhaps it was said to me so often on multiple occasions that I became so numb to it, that I couldn't pull one particular time frame apart from another? 

I had no basis to prove it, just a strong constricting feeling in my chest, robbing me of breath. A tightness in my throat. A prickling sensation in my eyes. For a forgotten wound like this to still be so painful at the slightest agitation, even decades after the fact, she couldn't have been a very good mother, now, could she?

There were two things I was absolutely certain of though: We were both very different people and that mothers don't get to choose their daughters. How many times had she pointed out a distant cousin my age or better yet, a random kid off the street, and went, 'Ooh, if only my daughter was like that!' 

How many times had she put me down for not measuring up to her expectations with the words: "My Co worker's son did better than you." Like we were both some cheap plastic jewelry for two petty children to compare.

I have no scars, no broken bones. My mother may not have been physically abusive. She didn't have to be. Emotional wounds caused by careless words apparently lasted much longer and are much more difficult to later prove that it had been said, making it that much harder for them to be held accountable.

My eyes went to the two women again, still engaged in their own talks and my pulse sped up furiously. What would they think if they knew the very children they often say they wanted to kill, sometimes thinks about killing them too? It wouldn't matter if they had said it as a joke or out of anger, never intending to go through with it. What difference would it have made to a child still green and learning the ways of this world anyway?

Yes, I thought as the bus made its stops before moving on again, Mothers don't get to choose their daughters just like daughters don't get to choose the woman who'd given birth to her. 

Ours was a relationship decided on by chance and entirely built on by fate. It was something that was completely out of both our control. How could a relationship born out of mere obligation like that be real? All I could think of what we had in common was our blood: In another life, were we not mother and daughter, would we have bothered to stay acquainted?

The bus pulled at another stop. I watched as people, including the woman and her child, filed towards the exits slowly, wishing I could get off as well. I watched the little girl as she held onto her mother. Her tiny hand engulfed in something much bigger and stronger than her own.

Perhaps the very reason that parents vent out their frustration on their children is because they depend on them so much. A child knows they cannot leave you no matter how badly you'd treat them because their survival depends on it. Where else would they go? And if the one who'd sired them treated them like a hindrance, who else would see their worth? So a parent is in that prestigious position of power where they can demand respect but don't need to be respectful in return.

In a way, perhaps Parenthood is just Mother Nature's sadistic test of Humanity's self restraint? To see how a person would treat a lesser being than them? Put them in the proportional position of a god and what will they do?

I shifted in my seat and scoffed as the doors snapped shut and the bus began moving again.

Respect your parents, children. That's what they say. What? Because we specifically asked to be brought into this cruel world and wasn't the direct result of two idiots getting horny one night? What a joke.

I rubbed my eyes tiredly. My head pounded in beats of pain like a second heart in my skull, or a ticking time bomb ready to burst out into the world and fill it with all the misery I've been holding in for decades.

Screw the eulogy. I tossed aside the napkin. Why sing praises to someone who'd treated me like the bane of her existence? There's one more stop before I'd reach my destination. I can jump ship there, pretend I'd never stepped on this bus and make my way home. My real home. The one I'd built without her. 

While I eagerly waited for that next stop where I could finally get off this bus of doom, I tried to think of something positive, I tried to remember the day I moved out. The day I'd finally freed myself of her. Surely it must have been a delightful day of victory and excitement for me. But no. I remembered tears. Lots of tears. I remembered her reaching out to stroke her fingers through my loose hair which made me reminiscent of the times she used to comb it back so very gently- until I'd find myself wanting to close my eyes and go to sleep under that lulling caress- then her long fingers would expertly braid them into tight coils, making sure that not a single lock was out of place. Every single day before school.

"Why do I have to go, Mom?" I'd whispered that day I left home for college. The same words I'd say everyday before she would send me off to school. 

A single touch and I had almost instantly reverted back to that frightened little girl anxious at the thought of a world that was much bigger than her and- as she had just recently started to learn- was definitely much bigger than her mother. 

"No questions. You must go."

But what if I get lost? I'd wondered. 

Instead I had asked, "Why won't you come with me?"

And my mother had replied with the same cryptic reply she'd monotonously always said, "because your branches extend further than mine."

It was only that last time she'd said those words to me that I'd finally understood, that I'd finally registered how sad she really sounded. She would have followed me everywhere if she could. But she knew she'd have to let me go one day.

Just like I would have had to let her go.

The bus pulled to a stop again. Numbly, I stood up and lingered at the end of the short line of people filing out the exit. Before I knew it, it was my turn.

Clinging to it's sides, I peeked a head out the double door, and caught a glimpse of a familiar yet unfamiliar street. I was almost home.

My heart felt like a heavy stone in my chest, dead and unbeating. Perhaps this entire time I'd been viewing her through the rose tinted lenses of a child who was under the impression that she could do no wrong, that she was this invincible utterly perfect human that never made a mistake, never had angry feelings of her own that made her say the things that she would otherwise never have said. And even after she was gone, I was still judging her memories through those same old dusty lenses, not taking into consideration an adult's reasoning skills and it's limitations. Perhaps she'd tried her best and I was just judging a mere ancient deep sea creature by her ability to walk on a crooked land created by my childhood wishes and unfulfilled desires.

'Hey. You getting off or what?" The driver snapped at me.

I shot him a glare before retreating back to my seat. The bus moved forward once more.

Could I have had a better mother? No. She'd played her part in shaping me to be the woman I am today. 

But couldn't I have at least had a more considerate one though? And if I had, how would I have turned out? Would we have been closer as a family? Would this lingering pain in my chest still exist?

Worse, would she have liked me better had I made an actual effort to be more considerate of her?

It was a depressing thought that all of this could have been avoided. But how could I have known it back then? I was just a child, my knowledge somewhat limited to learning through following in her own examples, like a talking parrot who merely repeated the same words she'd heard, never understanding why it was said. It's just that the bad ones more often than the good ones seemed to have left a bigger impression on me.

Back then, I'd wished she wasn't my mother because I'd sometimes felt like she'd been wishing the same. All those threats and petty arguments we've had led me to believe we were both trapped by this thing we called family.

But the dark side of wishes is that they make you blind to all the good things you might already have. Things you could still lose while chasing after that dream and trying to drag it kicking and screaming into reality.

How many times had I declined an invitation for dinner in favor of getting an overtime bonus and hopefully a promotion? How many times had I promised myself that I would call her back but I clearly hadn't?

"People forced to be together don't workout." My mother had once said to me when my parents finally divorced and my father moved out of the house to another continent entirely. I'd known from the get go that my parents' marriage wasn't one born out of a choice. They were both merely pawns in a very old fashioned chess manuever my politically enthusiastic grandparents had pulled. I was merely the bitter result.

Perhaps that was why she'd stopped reaching out to me after so many a cold shoulder given and taken? Perhaps she was afraid she might come off to me as her own controlling mother who'd forced her into a relationship she had no say in? Giving me space and freedom, had that been my mother's way of being considerate towards me?

I got off the bus onto the street of my childhood. It hasn't changed much from what I remember, but everything I see now seemed distorted, like I was viewing a very familiar movie but from the angles of a different camera on the set.

I took my time, taking precarious breaths of nostalgic pine filled air while making my way past the suburban houses. The large square tiles that made up the sidewalk reminded me of a childhood game I would play: I'd imagine the sliver of gaps that lay between one tile and another was actually a huge chasm that would swallow me up if I did not skip them over.

Back here again, even years later, I was doing the same thing almost unconsciously.

Perhaps our relationship was just like one of these tiles? Just a minor stone to be stepped on and left behind me in a much longer journey I am on? If it was, then it was a very special one that had influenced a lot of the paths I had taken. Like chosing to step off that bus here instead of heading back home.

What other future decisions I make would my dead mother have a hand in this way? Probably more than I'd ever know. In this way, I suppose she'd never really left me.

Soon I could see the funeral home. I could slightly make out the distinct faces of family members who were gathered outside enjoying the nice warm weather while they still can before they would be told to head inside. 

I hesitated. They haven't seen me yet, angled away from view as I was behind one of the many conveniently placed shrubbery that lined this area of the neighborhood.

What was I doing here? I'd discarded the stupid napkin on the bus, now what the hell was I going to tell them about my mother? That she was sometimes an emotionally abusive wretch who'd clearly passed on her mommy issues that she'd gotten from her own mother to me? Or that I was a horrible daughter and I could have been a better one if I'd just known what I knew now?

While I was still metaphorically tearing at the ends of my hair, a cool breeze blew against my skin and rustled the leaves of the bush I was using as a cover and something fluttered across the edge of my vision, catching my attention.

It was just a piece of flying tissue. But the bright color against the dark green lawn and the way it moved chaotically in the wind reminded me of a time when things like death had never occurred to me. Lazy carefree summer days spent chasing fanciful things that momentarily caught my attention.

Like that one time I chased and caught a butterfly only to see the bug like eyes, the squirming multiple hair thin legs and the odd twitching antennae, a little too up close for my taste. "Eugh!" I'd waved it away from me.

My mother had laughed at my reaction and as we both watched it flutter away, higher and higher, she'd told me, "Some things you gotta admire from afar, my girl."

Perhaps it should be applied to humans as well, I mused to myself now as I finally mustered up the courage to walk up to the funeral home where my family and old friends await, you look too close and we are unable to see past their ugly faults: these old forgotten yet still festering wounds our loved ones inflict on us without even knowing it. No matter how lovely and beautiful their fragile wings could be.