I Am My Father's Daughter... My Mother's, Too

My nightly ritual with Mama of praying the rosary while she is asleep in ICU doesn't become easier with each day. Somehow, before the rosary is finished my voice breaks and tears fall. I control the breaking of my voice because I don't want Mama to hear the despair arising from it. I don't want anyone else to see this moment of weakness.

I have learned to control the demonstration of my emotions. At times, you can even say I am stoic. This, I learned from Papa. I thought it was the height of cool that one could stay calm and collected in the face of a crisis. When Mama would be in hysterics, he would be seemingly detached from it all. He would just look as if there was nothing happening that was out of the ordinary. He would almost always send me to fix things up. I would of course do it but with much resistance and resentment. I wondered why I had to be the one to calm her down and soothe her nerves just as I also pondered why Mama had to resort to histrionics to make her point in their countless arguments.

So I strove NOT to be like her. During any crises, I could be counted upon to be unfeeling and therefore could think through a tense situation. Even if deep inside me, my nerves were in a turmoil, I was not one to make this known. I try to maintain that poise no matter what (even during childbirth labor pains, I've been told)!

But twice in my adult life, when getting caught in their fights had proven to be too much, to my horror I have acted out like Mama. I have surprised myself by screaming and crying with all of my being. I have always regretted my behavior on these two occasions but looking back, I excuse myself by saying that Mama and Papa got what they deserved. I was just replaying events to which they subjected me on a regular basis from childhood till my middle adulthood. (I would only get a respite from the fights when they ceased during their years of infirmity.)

Can we escape from having the images and our reactions to them being implanted during our childhood? Can we choose whom we want to become but inevitably play out hurtful scenes once again even when we don't want to?

Am I more my father's daughter? Or my mother's? Hmmmm... Both, I guess but Neither, too.
I am complicated, befuddled, but always trying to be no one but ME! 

Saturday, 6 June 2009
Outside the ICU