Talk

How I wish people would just talk.

Talk so that they understand.

Talk so that they can see.

Tall so that they can begin to see the world through the eyes and mind of another.

We just need to talk, to communicate, to day what is happening in this little isolated world that we call our mind. 

We just need to open up, not be afraid to share and tell another person how we feel, about how we think. .

Imagine how much conflict can be avoided. 

Imagine how much pain and anguish can be minimised.

Imagine how much misunderstanding can be bridged and reconciled. 

After almost two weeks with my family again (...after almost two years apart), I feel this pinge of sadness on the second last night of my departure. Who knows when I will be here again. 

The situation isn't great. There is now a total breakdown of communications between my brother and his wife. The kids are doing fine, but I cannot be worry about how they must be feeling the tensions and unspoken simmer anger and perhaps even hatred that the parents have for one another. Kids are so sensitive. By calling them kids, we seem to diminish their capacity to feel, to sense, to be affected and even traumatised. 

It is cruel that grownups sometimes put their own egos and prejudice above all else, at times at the expense of the children. And it is presuming too much to think of or even call grownups grownups, as if they know or are able to cope with it all. 

For the past hour and a half, I sat with my brother and just spoke. Nothing confrontational, nothing with blame or pointing figures. Just genuinely speaking to him because i genuinely care about his well-being. He even thanked me at one point for caring (though whenever he mentions his wife, it's full of anger, despise and just prejudice). It's been emotionally draining to sit through the first moments. I had invited my sister-in-law to join us, but she outright rejected it, and said there is nothing to talk about, and told me to just go speak to my brother. I felt really dejected about that, actually hurt, as there is no chance at any form of communication if one side just shuts down.

And fair enough, my brother said there is just nothing else to say, as he is not the one who makes decisions and it's all his wife's fault. It is thus at a crossroads, a deadlock, an impasse where neither side wishes to budge.