I follow Brothers
& Sisters religiously and at the end of every episode, I'd turn
green with jealousy and onto purple then into an all blackness of sorrow.
I am jealous of their closeness to each other and to their mother. They
call each other everyday, they gossip a whole lot, they talk excessively and
they are hopeless at keeping secrets. They always have a burning scratchy
itch to share what they know, what they seen, what they heard, where they go,
who they met…
My family is the opposite
of Brothers and Sisters. And my mother is the opposite of Nora
Walker. I know that statement sound like an ingrate but my mother was
cold. She doesn’t express love in a loving motherly way. She hovers
and was good at it. Nora on the other hand would hop, skip, jump, crawl -
to rescue her children.
I signify myself with
Kitty in some ways. At the start of the series, Kitty’s relationship with
Nora was distant and cold. Whilst me and my mother - perpetually
estranged. Eventually Kitty improved her kinship to Nora but I
didn’t.
Brothers and Sisters do the things family does and they see each other
every day and they need one another like air. My family doesn’t do the
things the Walkers do. We’d dine together on special ocassions and the
time spent at the table was the slowest drag of my life. We’d keep
conversations at basic level and words were cleverly lined-up to avoid
confrontations.
My family - we hardly
talk. Calling a family member is something I rather not do and knowing if
they feel the same way is something I do not want know. We are not close
as if we are not related. Phone calls can be as awkward and nerve
wrecking as a job interview. There were no ‘I love you’ or ‘I miss
you’. No hugs and no kisses. No birthday wishes. Eye contact
is as painful as a root canal.
I know Brothers
& Sisters are fictional characters so I can't really compare...
Not too long ago, I
visited a friend in the middle east. The closeness he has with his family
blew me off of my chair. They hugged and kissed and they get curious
about each other’s lives. They do this every day and they never get
bored. From mother to father to children to aunties and uncles to cousins and
it doesn’t end. What did they do right?
Once upon a time, I was
close to everyone in my family. My memory failed to recall our happy
moments but there are proof in pictures. I wonder what went wrong?
There seem to be a force stronger than life pulling us apart. Or was it
my parents who screwed us all up?
My mother went around
telling folks giving birth to me caused her a world of eternal pain. Thirty
seven years later, I still have a mental picture of the pain written on her
face and words of her suffering as she announces this over and over again, for
god knows how many times prior. Had she resented me that much to have
blamed me? So many questions I wanted to ask her and now she is gone.
I am left with two pages full of unattended questions. What kind of
a mother who say such thing about her offspring? What was her intention?
I tried to think of
issues to talk to my father but I never succeeded. So we end up with
exchange of a-half-of-a-smile from across the room when I’m about to head to
school and upon my return. To think that I was once this little girl who
would go running to him for a hug until the age of 10. Thereafter, we
became strangers. Feeling the distant between us, he would ask about
mundane issues so just to hear my voice. Daddy gets an A for effort!
He lets me lead my life and he never force anything on my… not even religion.
Love you Dad! I wish I could say it to your face. Every now
and then, I'd send love spiritually.
Despite of our hearts at
a distance, deep inside I like to go home one day and hug & kiss my
brothers and sisters and say nothing but words of love.
Here I am airing my
family laundry for the world to see. It’s embarrassing…. But I wonder if
there is anyone out there who is just like me.