Holy cow! I just received a card today from my Dallas mom, congratulating me on my graduation… and presenting me with a cheque.
Seriously, I had to check twice, because I thought I misread the number.
Holy fuck.
400 bucks. I kid you not.
And then I think, my Dallas mom is not even my biological mom, nor have I ever been legally adopted or anything, and I have seen her last about 4 years ago (has it been 4 years already???). And there I get 400 bucks from someone who has absolutely no obligations towards me, and then I think, where the fuck has my real mother been, who would not even make a minor concession, which would have never cost her a penny, but would have allowed my dad to get some tax cuts, which he then would have used to help me get through university. Just out of spite. It’s not even that I want anything from mother, or that I asked for anything… it was just finding out about this, and about her spiteful remark “Well, she wanted to study in England, no one made her!” (the truth is, in Germany I would have been on a 7 year waiting list to get onto my course of choice, and England has done a lot more for me than my own country (hell, doesn’t that sound familiar)) that just made me realise how little a fuck she really gives, and that justifies my own indifference-cum-contempt-cum-indifference for her.
Maybe mother taught me an important lesson there, and Pat’s love for me doubled that lesson’s impact: namely that you cannot trust anyone, expect anything good from anyone, but count yourself blessed if something good does happen to you. That you can never take anything for granted, and that there are no safeties and certainties in life, especially in regard to people, only blessings. It comforts and scares me at the same time. Comfort, because I know what to expect, even if it’s nothing, and fear precisely because there isn’t anything I can trust 100%. I still want my fairy tale certainties, even though I will probably disappoint myself a million times over again.
When you grow up a certain way, you never question its rightness or wrongness. This is just the way things are, and they are irrefutable, unquestionable. And now, having Pat, and being an aunt to little Jessie, I cannot fathom how one could not love one’s kid… I cannot, to save my life, understand why mother was the way she was to me, if I can’t feel this even towards children that are not my own, or if Pat can love a kid thousands of miles and millions of genes away from her. In some way it is therapeutic. Low self-esteem or not, it makes me think, maybe it isn’t me after all. Maybe something is just screwed up in mother’s head. If strangers can love me, why can’t she? If I can love children that are not related to me, why can’t she even love her own flesh and blood?
Just to add, this is not about money or material things proving affection at all. I certainly don’t measure love by how much people fork out. But it’s the unexpected gestures. How can something you ask for be a proof for love? It’s the unexpected that always tells you the whole truth.
Pat and Bob are two of the few people on this planet of whose love I can be sure, and that is a haven for me.
I love you, mom and dad!
No comments:
Post a Comment