Family reunion

I hugged my mum tightly, and started sobbing. Tears ran down my face, and everything was a blur. I broke down, and as if the intimate touch of another person I had so longed for broke the barrier that I had built up inside, the tears became unstoppable. All the frustration, the longing, the anger and aching pain flowed with the tears, as I hugged mum and rested my head on her shoulder.

Less than one day since my parents arrived, and my worst nightmares have already played out before my eyes. The things I dreaded, but dare not put down in words erupted, with all the shock and awe and fright still lingering on in the slight way my fingers now tremble.

A family reunion turned into a family split. We went to pick up my parents at the airport, and perhaps twenty minutes after were together dad threw a tantrum over the smallest thing and began scolding my mum left and right in the arrivals terminal. It was over a piece of luggage that mum took from him to lighten his load, but because she hadn’t told him, he got all upset and angry and went on all about responsibility. I stood there, and as usual tried to calm the eruption by saying it was OK, nothing was lost. For my brother, who had already more or less given my dad a cold reception when they saw each other, it was of course more fuel to his deep-seated anger and animosity towards dad.

All seemed well and dandy until dinner. We sat around to eat, brother sitting opposite dad, but throughout the entire meal brother neither looked or spoke to my dad. My dad got upset and muttered about how indignant and rude my brother had gotten since they last met almost three years ago. I sat there, and said nothing, but again felt tension and resentment resurfacing. Deep inside, I shook and wondered how long it would be till things escalate.

Not long. Suddenly out of the blue, and before retiring to his bedroom, dad told mum in a menacing tone that he would rather burn this house down than leave it to my brother. Mum was of course heart-broken, for the hopes that she had had of bringing the two together were again torn to bits. Brother overheard, and started to (over)react, listing all the wrongs that dad had done in the past few years, like never being a ‘real’ dad, like neglecting the family, like treating mum badly etc. etc. etc. My mum and I listened to his tirade. My mum tried pointlessly to try to calm brother down, to bridge the peace and gap, and try to smooth the tensions. At one point I responded (perhaps wrongly) by telling my brother that he is actually exactly like dad, in every single way, including the way he gets angry at the smallest little thing, the way he talks down to people and the way he treats his girlfriend, exactly like how my dad treats mum.

Then followed another tirade, this time against me, again accusing me of neglecting my house work, of forgetting to turn of the light, of not feeding the cat, of hanging the curtains wrong, of never being home (and then of being home all the time). His eyes bulged in rage, his fingers pointed and his voice boomed in the air. A more angry and terrifying person I’ve hardly encountered.

I stood there and listened, shaking my head in the disbelief at all the accusations I was again hearing… all the accusations over nothing that somehow turned into something so huge and sinful. I was so wrong, wrong and wrong again and again and again.

Perhaps the sound of brother shouting woke dad, and made him come downstairs. Without knowing what was going on, and still angry at the way brother had treated him, my dad burst out swearing, shouting, finger pointing. Like father, like son. Brother shouted back, in the same menacing tone and words and finger pointing, and accusing him of being a worthless dad. “Dirty PIG! Scum of the earth! SWINE!”, my dad replied. Mum stood there, and I could hear her heart break in her sighs and see her pain in the way she shook her head in sadness and disappointment. I stood by and told her not to interfere, not to get in the way, and to just let them fight and argue and say whatever they needed to say to each other. But when there seemed to be no end to the horrible abusive shouting and finger pointing, I told both of them: “You two are exactly alike, in the way you shout and gesture, in the way you treat your [girlfriend/wife]. You are exactly the same. If he is a pig, you are a pig. If he is scum of the earth, you too are scum of the earth”.

That stopped the shouting, and dad stormed upstairs. I wandered towards the kitchen, trembling from the horrors I had just witnessed, my head spinning from the upsetting family drama that had just unfolded, and had just confirmed my fears that this façade of a family reunion would erupt into a cold, cold war. My mind was full of pain, my heart aching. Mum silently followed me. As soon as I saw her near, I could not help myself…

I closed both arms around her and started sob like a little helpless and hurting boy. Sob like I’ve not done for a long, long time, because I finally had a shoulder to cry on. Behind my closed eye lids the images of the shouting and arguments replayed themselves, criss-crossing with the images of the scars and wounds on mum’s body, which she had shown me earlier, from the operations she had undergone in the past year to remove her malignant tumours. I sobbed, feeling her grip tighten on me, as we seemed to be sharing each other’s pain and sorrow, as if we both understood all too well what the other is going through. I sobbed, feeling remorse and numbness, feeling sorry mostly for her, because she has to put up with this, because she has tried almost all her life to care and support this family together, but everything seemed to be breaking down and worsening even more and more. I sobbed, for her, because as a cancer survivor this is exactly the very last she needed. I sobbed, for my dad and brother, for they constantly dwell in their miseries and anger and resentment toward each other, but do not see just how alike both are. I sobbed, for my family, the last tatters of which is being torn and shredded like a cruel, mean joke. In the back of my mind, ‘Why?’, “Why?”, “Why?” repeated themselves over and over again.

I cry as I write this… as I think about all these terrible things mum has to endure, about all the anger and resentment running so deep and so clear in my family, about the dreams and hopes and prayers I had as a little kid of a happy, united family… The pain… the disappointment… the injustice… the suffering… they all seem to draw more and more tears from my eyes as I type, and type.

It feel soothing to cry, so calming to let all the bottled up emotions and longings flow with the tears. For a while I was still broken, words wallowing on my lips like the tears wallowing around my eyes as I tried to express my wishes and hopes for this seemingly hopeless family. “All I want is that people get along. All I want is for you and dad to live a peaceful and happy life together. All I want is for brother and dad to reconcile. I want this to end. This horrible conflict. I want it to end”. The more I spoke those words, the more emotional I felt.

Boys don’t cry.

But I was never a boy, so let me be one for once.