Brave Heart | ✔️

24

~

When the semester ended and I was stuck at home, forced to spend time with my parents, we were eating breakfast together one day when my mom said, "Aliya's daughter is getting married."

I swear I was about to stab my fork into my own palm when she mentioned marriage. And maybe I would have had it not been for the fervent glance my dad sent my way. Then he said, "Yes, Asif was telling me."

"Everyone seems to be getting married nowadays," my mom remarked casually. My fist tightened around my fork.

"That's cool," I replied offhandedly.

"I also got married at the age of—"

I couldn't help it. I slammed my fist on the table and snapped, "Can we please not talk about marriage for once?"

My mom stared at me in awe before her expression turned livid. "What kind of a stunt was that? Huh?"

I had to contain the scream threatening to erupt out of me, so I turned my head towards my plate and allowed my mom to scold me for my "incredibly rude and disrespectful behavior."

My dad stayed quiet. As usual. He allowed her to beat me up with words that would never stop scratching at the walls of my skull.

As she scolded me, I kept thinking of her relationship with my dad. Stoic, professional, associating when necessary and seldom else. It was more a business partnership than a loving marriage.

Or maybe they did love one another at one point. After all, they did marry and have me. And they had stayed married. So something must have gone right along the way.

But I had always remembered them like this. Quiet and stiff around one another.

Perhaps. Perhaps it was because of how overbearing my mom used to be sometimes. Attempting to interfere in any business, whether it concerned her or not.

But at that moment I had realized a profound truth.

I had always blamed my mother.

I had always gotten angry at her when I saw how silent her and my dad's relationship was. I had always looked at her attributes and pointed fingers at them. I had always shared annoyed looks with my dad after an argument with her.

I had never thought of what my dad may have done to make her like that. To have her so riled up all the time, willing to pounce on us if we committed the slightest mistake.

I was falling into the same trap that everybody else so often did. Calling my mother overbearing and helicoptering instead of turning to see what about my dad had made her so permanently upset and angry.

I had ruthlessly tied her down for her mistakes, had never once considered what faults my dad may have had.

Why?

I remember when I first thought of this why, my heart palpitated against my ribcage persistently.

Why did I harbor so much animosity towards my mother?

Because she reminded me of myself.

She reminded me of my own tendency to be overbearing, she was a mirror reflection of my own habit of overexerting myself and inserting myself into other's lives—often at the expense of myself—while convincing myself it was for their pleasure.

And I never, ever wanted to admit this to myself. I didn't want to admit that I was weak and easily upset by disconnections and detachments. So I covered this up by being constantly hostile and overly aggressive towards all of my mother's attempts of involvement in my life.

In literature there is something called a foil, which is a character who contrasts another character (such as the protagonist) in order to highlight or differentiate certain attributes about the protagonist.

My mother was my foil.

Although we did not have opposing characteristics, my mother was the character that I didn't want to admit highlighted parts of me I wanted so badly to ignore. The overbearing nature, the quiet fear of being abandoned, the desire to try to be more than I had the capability to be.

So when I realized this shocking yet profound truth as my mom was scolding me for my bad behavior, I turned to her and my eyes became watery.

And then I burst into tears.

She stopped mid-sentence, eyebrows furrowing in confusion, anger temporarily subsiding. She took one look at me and said, "Sarah, kya hua?"

I shook my head and continued to cry. Loud, ugly sobs. And then I had the strange urge for her to hold me. So I stood from my seat and nudged hers back so that I could collapse into her lap and wrap my arms around her.

I had not hugged my mother like this in a long, long time. But that day, I wanted nothing more than for her to hug me back as tight as she could. So she could possibly squeeze the overwhelming guilt out of me.

I felt my mom's obvious shock before she quickly wrapped her arms around me and stroked my hair. Just like that. All the spitfire and angry words forgotten. Everything gone. Heart melted. Just from seeing two tears in my eyes.

I realized in that moment we were more similar than I had ever wanted to notice or admit. So strongly marionetted by our attachments to people and their emotions.

Through my blurry tears over my mom's shoulder, I caught the look of surprise on my dad's face. He paused, fork midair, as his eyes darted between the two of us.

And why would he not watch us as if we were crazy?

I had been angry at my mom all my life. And she—in her own way—had tried to please me all my life. I had constantly shoved and pushed her away, thinking it was my anger at her demonstration of love but only later realizing it was my anger at being so similar to her. At wanting to push her away because she was a hurtful reminder of the person I was but deep down did not at all want to be.

In this way, we were both—my mom and I—victims of our fragile, stupid hearts.

~

translations:

kya hua?: "what happened?"