Friday 30 May 2014

Pent Up Fears & Silent Tears

I always fade away and pop out again, and that is because of my extremely messy life and disorganized schedule (trying to get myself together and make some time for my writings though!)
Enough with my justifications,

Here's a quite different story that carry my deepest emotions blended to illustrate a kind of struggle not enough to describe in one-word. 
...

Background
Alice is an offspring of two different races that allowed love to determine their future in a time that was strongly driven by racism and narrow-mindedness. Her mother fought to be with her father, and her father fought to be with her mother. When Alice was born, her parents had already lost their parents; she never met any of her grandparents and she never even wondered why they were not there. That was simply because she never had them around to mourn their loss, nor did she have to lose them in the first place. She was just the next generation that never met the previous one.
...
When Alice's childhood gradually grew faint, her cognizance emerged. She started asking, "where are my grandparents?" Not because she was upset for seeing her friends have ones but because she was curious. Her dad told her wonderful stories about his mother, not mentioning his father. She then knew that he grew up without one. Day by day, Alice knew everything about her grandmother, Mary, and she fell in love with her character. She also saw pictures of Mary. Mary's hair was long and deep reddish-brown, her skin was bronze, and her eyes were gray. Alice's dad is dark-skinned with gray eyes and slightly brown hair. She could see where all that came from, except his skin color. Her dad then told her that his father was darker than his mom, and that was when he started speaking about his own father. He was a diver and a pearl-collecter. He spent months, sometimes years, away from his son. And Mary, Alice's grandmother, ended her marriage with the diver. She was very young but almost infertile; Mary's dad was a miracle. However, Mary was known for being the mother of all the children that lived in their area. She disciplined them, fed them, and adored them. 
And that was the story of one grandmother only..
...
Alice's mother is an introverted woman, she almost has nothing to talk about. Unlike her dad, her mother is silent, passive, and unemotional. Alice always believed that her mother is just apathetic. She never tried to understand her mother's nature and find out whether she is just putting up a facade to hide something or not. Marianne, Alice's mother, also seemed distant. She never tried to approach Alice either. This shows that they have an almost skin-deep relationship.
...

Alice's perspective
My mother's nature with me makes me repel, and how I repel makes me feel guilty. Guilty because I don't feel I'm being a good daughter, but this is only because I do not feel the connection. Marianne's very bitter with me, but she also contradicts herself, which keeps me puzzled. I can see pain in her eyes when I fall ill, and I can see the happiness in her slight smile when I succeed in whatever it is that I do. She just does not express it, whatever she feels. It may upset me but it also makes me worry. Sometimes, I just want to feel appreciated and recognized by my mother. It is not enough to have the world clap for me when my own mom does not. It has begun to irritate me more when I started realizing that she is stiff only towards me. It keeps me wondering and constantly thinking. I am the only daughter that is multilingual, athletic, and learned; I always make exhausting efforts to achieve not satisfaction but pride, my mother's pride, which I do not get. I fight vigorously to make her proud, but I am only loved, instinctively, and I started leaving it as it is.
...

I woke up one day to the sound of the ambulance's siren. It felt as though my heart was running with urgent haste across my entire body. I was stunned, waiting for anyone to come and tell me that everything was alright, but no one came. I walked my worrying self to the living room to find it empty. kept wondering, "who is it? who left us?" I was driven by pessimism, hoping that it was not my mother who was taken away. I did not know why I especially thought of her. 
I then knew from my sister that it was my mother. She fainted for no apparent reason and had to be immediately taken to the hospital.
Marianne had two skull neoplasms for 10 years, as a result of abnormal growth of cells, that she never told anyone about. It was a source of wonder and worry for me. I wanted her to recover as fast as possible.
To prevent them from spreading, Marianne had the tumors removed without anesthesia, which kept me thinking of how strong this woman is. This mere incident created this urge to try and understand why Marianne does not talk about her pains. To hide such physical discomfort for a decade is something to worry about. I needed to know what my mother hides.
After her recovery, I overheard my father telling my mother this, "I was terrified, I remembered your mom." I rushed to where they stood, wanting to know what he remembered exactly. And as he started talking, my tears ran down the crescents of my eyes and rested on my cheekbones, then slowly began staining the collar of my shirt. 
Marianne's mother was diagnosed with cancer, I could never ask for details to know what kind of cancer. All I knew that she began throwing up parts of her own organs until she had no hope to even live. As my dad was talking about it, I kept looking at my mom. She was expressionless and quiet. She was not responsive at all, as if it was not her mother's death that we were talking about. I knew, though, that it is a sensitive topic to her. But why is it?
I understood exactly why. Marianne's mother, my grandma, loved her daughter endlessly. She did menial work to afford all that Marianne dreamed of. Although my grandfather was rich back then, he never asked what my mother wanted, he never asked how she felt. He had another wife and other children that he was busy with. Marianne was the youngest among her step-siblings, and her father did love her, he was simply too carried away. Her mother, however, did the impossible to keep her happy and satisfied. But as a young girl who was neglected by her dad, Marianne was rebellious. She never listened to her mother. She dropped out of school and relied on her mom, until my father married her. My dad, loved my grandmother a lot. She lived with my parents until the day she died.
It is guilt that determined my mother's new character after my grandmother's death. She loved her but failed to show her that. She never told anyone about the tumors that were bothering her because she was afraid to be blamed. She was afraid to be reminded of the way she lost her mother. She felt responsible for my grandmother's death. But she was not. 
I started understanding Marianne, which strengthened my love for her. I do not want her to live with unspoken emotions that may eventually destroy her. In spite of our constant arguments, I do want to have this tight bond with her, but she does not allow me to get close. But as much as I understand, I cannot measure her pain.
...

Start of An End
It was discovered that the tumors that took away Alice's grandmother did not stop at her death. The neurogenic neoplasms begin as benign tumors and may develop if not removed. Something that threatens their genes and terrifies Alice. 
Alice now has two apparent tumors. And every time she feels committed to undergo the surgeries, something holds her back. She is afraid to let them rest in her body and allow them to intoxicate her fate, yet she is unable to help herself. It is an easy procedure; going to the hospital, removing the tumors. But to Alice, it is much deeper than that. She thinks of her mother and the guilt she carries since her grandmother's death. Alice does not want her mother to wither from guilt. She knows exactly that her mom will blame herself. Thus, Alice is praying for strength and determination. 
...

Undecided Decisions
I now know that I can never be as strong as my mother, but I know that I can handle the pain until I decide to let it go. I hate being thought to be careless, there is not anyone that does not care about their health. I get phantoms; I imagine my grandmother and how her death recreated my mother. I do not know how my mother used to be, but to see how she is now, I can honestly form a mental picture of her internal struggle. This fear started when I met the surgeon that was supposed to remove my first tumor. When he knew who I was, he started tearing down. I was baffled, thinking he was being unreasonably sympathetic. Yet, that was not the case. He was the same surgeon that tried to save my grandmother's life. The surgeon my mother never wanted to see. Not because she blamed him, but because he was the last person to see her mother, the person who knew a lot about her. Most importantly, he was the person who understood her pain and tried his best to save her. 
He could not deal with me, fearing failure. 
And that was the last time I visited the hospital for that matter.
...

To end this story, 
I hope that God grant us serenity, strength and sense to keep our health at its best, in order to obtain the ultimate happiness of this life. May God allow us to have endless chances to have all our needs met!

Love,
Alia