Blog @ Work

The secret

Prompt: Tell us about something you weren't supposed to know, but found out anyway. "JAFBG"   by Elisa the Bunny Stik

I’ve always wondered why I couldn’t get along with my late mother. I loved her very much, no doubt about that, but we never hit it off, we never became friends or intimate in our behavior. There always was a brick wall between us and I’ve hated her for that in my teens. Later, ofcorse, my relationship with her normalized but never was what it could have been. One day she told me the reason why, although we never spoke about it ever after that, and I am not sure till this day if she fully comprehended the impact of what she revealed to me at that particular time.

My parents stayed with each other till the end but were very abusive to one another. They fought and quarreled every day as long as could remember. So their relationship was very bad.

It was the time when my father was in the hospital, having a heart attack and getting treatment for it in my city Leyden. Because my mother wanted to visit every day she stayed over at my place for that period of time. We got to talking to each other, something we had never done before, not really. So she suddenly said to me that she was contemplating about getting a divorce. And I was like: really, at this moment in time, now that he is needing you the most to take care of him because he is sick? Why now? Why not done it years ago like I always was reminding her of that option over the years as she was constantly complaining to me about how bad their relationship was. Why now?! For goodness sake, that’s a rotten thing to do: leave a person while he is fighting for his life in hospital. Mind you, she threatened my father often to leave him, had the papers in her drawer, but never used them. And she was like: yeah, I got pregnant from you when we were engaged so many years ago, but it was during rape in the marriage.

And I was like: HUH! I am a product of rape? No wonder she has always disliked me in a way, I could feel that as a child ofcorse, but I never could point the finger at it as to what it was that made her not love me. Now I knew.

She never left him ofcorse, she and I never spoken about it ever again, but from that day on I was aware of the reason why she probably could not love me properly, I was the product of a bad encounter with her soon-to -be husband and she was reminded of that fact witnessing me every day in my youth.

I felt deeply moved and was feeling very sorry for her. It only was years later I suddenly reminded myself I could feel sorry for this for myself as well. It’s not a good feeling knowing your own mother has reservations from the day I was born. I know now why I never felt welcome.

I never told my father about this, it didn’t seem appropriate to do so. They both are gone now, so I have to deal with this notion myself. Can’t really talk about it with anybody so I thought to vent it here. It’s not that it bothers me at this stage in my life, but I am glad I know why my mother and I didn’t get along very well. She even asked my forgiveness at her death bed, I was there when she passed away. I like to think it was because of this. I forgave her ofcorse! She had to deal with lots of issues, one being a survivor from a Japanese war camp in World War 2. There is always some pain to deal with in life. I am just dealing with mine.