Things I Think about When I Think about Mother

Ever since I learned about Freud, talking or thinking about my mother makes me feel so uncomfortable. It always seems to be so… oedipal, even if it’s probably not.

Where do I start?

The childhood beating?  

The punishment where I had to stand two hours just because I came home late? The moment I was scared to death that I ridiculously challenged her to a duel? Getting locked in the bathroom as a kid, with threats that I would never eat again? Those afternoons where I could not withstand her rage, that I ran away from home, three times? That night when I was so scared and upset that I chose to lie down on the porch?

The recent childish tantrum on a waitress, which ruined my brother’s birthday over UNCUT burgers?

 That one afternoon where I almost died in a flood on the way home, but I didn’t thanks to a kind stranger who dragged my stupid ass out of danger, and then I went home just to get scolded and I had to scream “I ALMOST DIED”?

Or that one night where she repeatedly hacked my bedroom door with a machete just because I couldn’t connect the call to Dad, who couldn’t be reached at the time?

She was a monster with poor judgment and hasty generalization.

She was rage, personified.

She was awful.

***

When I left my faith, my mom and I had an argument. She told me I was a blasphemous heretic, that my education was to blame.

What I told her was that she knew nothing about me.

What I didn’t tell her was that from that moment on, I had enough.

 

Soon after, I left home for good and try to make a living on my own.

And going back to my parents’ house feels nothing but a chore. A mere necessity. A desperate attempt of damage control.

 

She and I, we’re practically strangers with almost no common ground. And whenever I get back home, I often feel like I’m just an ear who listens to her problems.

A son who’s driven by guilt, masked by and intertwined with a sense of familial duty.

But today is her birthday.

And today I thought I haven’t really thought about her.

And today I think I should think a little more about her.

 

So let’s rewind, and take a closer look at how her life has been.

***

When my mother talked about her childhood, she always spoke of it fondly, and with a sense of nostalgic longing to turn back time, to simpler moments when she felt probably the happiest.

Born in 1966, my mother was the only daughter of a Chinese-Indonesian family.

As a little girl with 7 male siblings, her whole life has been a constant battle between traditional femininity and masculinity. I know little about her past. But I knew that she enjoyed both Kung Fu (yes, you heard that right) and poetry. When my grandfather’s biscuit factory went out of business, she helped her brothers made fried banana fritters and sold them in front of schools. It was a bit popular back then.

She was the straight A student, top of her class from elementary to middle school. Her teacher once said that she was the flower of the Yap family – just like her name is. A flower.

Despite her achievements and good deeds, her mother never seemed to like her. At least not as much as my grandmother loved her sons. She blamed it on a childish comment she made on my grandmother’s Chinese zodiac. It might have been something else. She never knew. My grandmother never told me, either.

So when my grandfather died, she was practically alone. And she kept trying to prove herself.

Once she was old enough to go to a university, her mother said that she’s short on money. But when her older brother said he wanted to get a bachelor’s degree, my grandmother generously funded his education.

Probably filled with disappointment, my mother went to Jakarta and gambled her luck.

Since my grandmother wouldn’t support her education, she had to work and save some money. She once worked as a computer store clerk in a mall. She bore with it. After some time, she saved enough money to register for a diploma degree.

Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to register, so she asked her friend to help with her admission. She was finally admitted by a private university, a decent one. But on her first day as a freshman, she found out that she was registered to the wrong major. She had no money to take care of the administration and switch to the academic discipline she wanted, so she bore with it. And graduated with a diploma a few years after.

One day she met a senior student in a campus fellowship. They got married. Years later, she found out that he wasn’t the man of her dreams, and they’re both two worlds apart. But she felt she must commit to her relationship. So she bore with it. (And she bore her firstborn shortly after.)

After she graduated, she got a job in a major company. And she climbed the career ladder to a point where her signature was required for all lumber exports. She also joined a successful MLM. She was doing fine.

But then 1998 happened. She lost her job, her achievement, her everything.

And it was her firstborn’s first day of school. And her usually compliant firstborn cried a lot that day, refusing to go to school, as he was too scared to meet other strangers.

And that… that ticked something on her mind.

Filled with rage, she dragged her son to her car.

Filled with fear, her son cried and kept pulling her hands.

Her hands were firm on the steering wheel. She just wanted to get her son to school. At least this she would get right.

Little did she know, her son would pull the steering wheel violently.

 

The car hit something.

It flipped.

She was unconscious.

Her son was still crying.

People gathered and tried to rescue the mother and her son.

They were saved. But she lost the car and her ability to drive.

She bore with it.

 

***

Ever since of that accident, she had been scared of driving.

She stopped driving altogether for almost 20 years.

Out of job and out of driving ability, she became a full-time housewife while her husband, who also lost his job, looked for work. Between 1998 and 1999, she would always worry about food every single day. On a good day, there would be vegetable soup. On bad days, she could give her family nothing but salted rice and pretended that it was delicious. (Her son bought the act, though. Stupid kid.)

So she, literally, was living on a prayer. And she would tell me that it was a miracle that we never ran out of rice.

I think she found religion and became a devout Christian shortly afterwards, as she felt that she owed it all to God. And Christian hymns became her favorite songs.

But even religion couldn’t save her from life’s bad jokes, which as we all know are told in daily routines with mere punchlines, no setups.

She was once a straight A student with full of potentials, an important employee with the power to stop national lumber exports, an unstoppable MLM sales powerhouse, a young woman with a million dreams.

Now she’s a housewife with a spouse who barely agrees with her in anything. In 2008, he would come home late. On several nights he would come home in the morning. Her kid found flirtatious texts in his phone.

She said she was fine. She was not.

A few days later she would cry all day, unable to speak a single word. The only noise that came out of her mouth was when she wailed.

And her wail would turn into screams.

And her screams would turn into hysteria.

And her hysteria would turn into a suicide attempt.

***

Fast forward a few years later, she’s still alive.

But her dreams are probably not.

 

She’s now in her mid 50s, and her husband is approaching 60s.

They’re still together, but they still can’t agree on what to do in their old days.

She wanted a business, but she couldn’t manage it.

He wanted to keep on working, but he knew he couldn’t work forever.

So once more, she holds on to God. Tightly. With the belief that God loves her unconditionally. Because that’s the only thing that can make her bear with it.

But I wish she knows that God or no God, she’s always been a survivor. And no matter what life throws at her, she always tries to cling to the greater good, at least in her own version. At every twist and turn, despite many failures, trauma, and accidents, she still wants to be a good person. And she still wants her children to be good people. And these days, she tries to listen. She tries to be more understanding. She tries to give more compassion. 

And that’s admirable.

And that’s worth noting.

 

Earlier I said that my mother was a monster. Rage personified. An awful person in general.

On some days, maybe I still do think of her that way.

But I think it’s wiser to take a closer look at what brought her to this point.

And that made me understand something about her.

 

That she survived. That she tried her best. That she was capable of good.

Sept 10, 2022.
Probably the last photograph where there's 4 of us together in a frame.

P.S.: To my closest and dearest friends, who also have problematic relationships with families, I’m not telling you to look at your parents the same way that I do now.

If your parents are beyond redemption, honestly, fuck them. Forget about them.

But as we grow up, I think life teaches us to be more compassionate to everyone.

And if your parents have some redeeming quality and show that they’re trying, then probably they deserve some compassion. And maybe it’s time for us to give them some.