Confessions of an Imperfect Daughter

3 - ABSENCE

ABSENCE

The lack that brought out the grief

He's my regret, my doppelganger, the plant I couldn't nurture. A wise man told me that as children we don't process complicated emotions. They come back to bite you in the ass when you grow older. When my sister started to become aware and face these issues, I was at home, talking her through it and easing her into the life I was living, urging her to build a wall of lies of her own. I couldn't do the same for him.

I put up with his long feeding hours, waiting with the next spoon of rice the minute his slow teeth broke down the previous one. I watched over him while he fell and hurt himself over and over again while playing with his friends. In many ways, I was there for him, the way I was for my sister, taking over responsibilities from you both regarding his tiffin, his water bottle and sometimes his studies. I cannot say I raised him the way you did, but I was there to tell him to suck it up when he whined over losing, to maintain a neutral standpoint when he fought with my sister (sometimes not so neutral) and to support him when you both gave him the look for getting low marks. That's why the regret exists.

You didn't tell us when he had cancer. I know you were protecting us but I was old enough to know and smart enough to realize on my own, but you not confiding in me still hurt. So, why don't you understand that I don't want to give you the same pain? I don't want to make you feel as though I don't trust you. His growth spurt was delayed because of it and his processing of his memories of childhood happened at a time when I was not there. As much as college took me away from you, it took me away from bonding with him, from helping him out the way I did with my sister.

For me and her, we had an abundance of the mundane to keep us connected, but with him, we had to make do with the little I cultivated for him. I tried to get into video games and the YouTube videos that he loved so much if only to make him talk to me more, but just as my sister couldn't stomach books, I couldn't sit through them. We were thus driven to school, a matter that he seldom talked about in as few words as he could and before the opportunity that superhero movies offered me, the only thing we had in common was the similarity in our appearances (he passed my phone's face lock once) and the anger that we inherited from you, dad.

The world of Avengers and DC was a gateway to communication for us and we could argue over the movies for hours on end. When I took over the storytelling business he pestered me for more, every day and I regret the days I succumbed to exhaustion. He's probably the best child that you've had, the formula was messed up the first two times but I'm happy you got at least one success. He's a lazy believer, but a believer nonetheless and though he lets your expectations down with respect to his grades in school, he doesn't do any of the rebellious things that I did when I was his age and doesn't partake in the anti-religious thoughts that I share with my sister. If I talked to him more over the phone I might have been able to discern his specific feelings and lend an ear to his problems but he never lets me. I can see that he needs me in the brief conversations that we have but he keeps this need locked up, away from prying eyes, never letting it out even upon my insistence.

When I talked about my sister invading my house and stopping me from exercising extremes, I should have mentioned the boy playing on the garden outside, the one I couldn't take my eyes off of. He was slowly growing up out there and the turbulent rains and storms never made him seek shelter.

You know all of this, at least in part, but what I wish to do requires a clean slate. You need to unlearn the parts of me that you felt sure you knew, the part that you trusted unconditionally and replace it with the person that I am. If homophobia, trans-phobia, racism etc. are any indication to the stressful and tedious process of unlearning, as I've mentioned countless times before, this will take a while.