Raging at Remembered Memories

Parents are one's unchangeable lot. Sometimes, we get lucky: we find people who we are okay to befriend as we grow older. But, most of the time, in my experience with people from my generation, relationships with fathers have been exceptionally hard to navigate. My father is no exception. 

Since I lost my mum about a year and a half ago, I have come to realise that his only memory of my mother is all that she did for him. He has no memory of her for herself - for who she was. She has written so many things and he has not read a single one of her writings. She loved books, witty articles in newspapers, flowers, good food, desserts, sweet music, TV serials. She was ever curious about the world and wanted to travel to new places and found joy in reading and learning about the places she wanted to visit. He has no memory whatsoever that memorialises any of these things. Instead, he talks about how she prepped for poojas, and becomes especially dramatic about the one festival where she ostensibly had to pray for his long life. He only seems to care about what she brought to his life. It is such a selfish view of another individual. 

All his life, he made her do all the work saying he will die before her, and so she needed to learn everything and be independent. But, he knew zilch because she really did EVERYTHING. She managed our family, she managed expenses, she managed every single thing under the roof that we call our house. So he can only think in those terms. He can only remember what she did, not who she was.

This enrages me. It makes me mad. He spent so much money on the funeral that HE wanted to give her, and he kept saying she would have wanted these things. That was the first sign of emotional manipulation and I can smell these things from so far, because work has taught me to do this. It is highly annoying that my brother and I must contend with someone who is so selfish and who uses victimization and manipulation to get his way. It angers me that he cannot remember my mother beyond her service for him. Everytime he sends a message on Whatsapp bemoaning the loss of my mum through the lens of what she would have done for him on a particular festival, I feel like crumpling up the message and throwing it in the dustbin. (That's the irritating thing about digital communications, no? You can't burn the paper or tear it up into tiny shreds to give you that instant gratification of a reaction, which the other person also doesn't have to see. Hitting the delete button brings no such solace, gah. Leaving them at seen is also filled with tension. Leaving people at seen with letters was way less intrusive and obvious.)

I know I must let this anger go, as my father is old and there is nothing to be gained by arguing with him. He is an idiot man, who has probably lived his life in a manner that he thought was the best. He probably has a lot of mental health issues that are not diagnosed and he will never seek help for those. I should view him from the lens of pity and think of him as a charity case, rather than get angry. To control my feelings and my reactions, at crucial moments when I confront my own emotions around losing my mum and my own sense of emptiness, is difficult, yes. But, can I challenge myself to do this as one of the many things I have done so far in life that have made me a happier, more well-rounded person? I think the answer is yes here too. 

It is really beyond my capacity to not get angry, but I need to learn to let the anger pass without reacting to it. Watch the anger bloom like a white monsoon cloud that puffs up and then floats away into the deep void. It sounds great when one writes like this, but to do it in one's everyday life is very hard. Nevertheless, I guess these are things that make us gain worth in our own eyes. Living with grace can be humbling, especially when there are little pricks of needling annoyance coming at you from all angles every hour. However, it has to be done. Living a compassionate, graceful life is the only way to be. 

Not that we can't skid our way through the melty red haze of rage whenever we need to. But, we can vent here on a barely read blogpost, rather than confront someone who will never understand and who is just not worth the confrontation. Let us pick our battles, as they say. There is enough we need to fight for.