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Autobiography: Chapter 2
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Prose/Short Stories Chapter 2
While this is my story, we can’t avoid the fact that my family life shaped what I’ve become so maybe this is a subject to linger on because it explains quite a bit of why I am the way I am.
I’ve always been close to my mother. Besides having similar personalities, we also had similar interests: shopping and most sedentary activities, such as watching television and napping. I was always able to talk to her like I talked to no one else. We had our secrets, of course, but she knew more about me than anyone.
My father was a distant stranger to me for most of my life. He wasn’t a horrible father and husband, but he wasn’t prize-winning either. Much like with my mother, my father and I had our own similar hobbies, including music and some sports-related activities. I’ll never forget when we often played our make-shift baseball in the family room with the ball being a rolled-up sock and the bat: a rubber sandal.
But he wasn’t always available, both physically and emotionally. I can recall numerous events and vacations that he was visibly absent. And he was never the most receptive father. He would try to buy my love with gifts and materials possessions. But my love did not have a quantifiable price. It was measured in hugs and kisses, in attention.
But the one thing that is engraved by my mind’s retina about my father was the fact that he cheated on my mother. It’s something I will never forgive him for. At times, I wish my mother never gave me this information for since the day I heard it, my relationship with my father changed for the worse.
For me, the strongest grudge I harbor is how he treats my mother: as inferior and as an annoyance most days. She does tend to be a pessimistic and, at times, unrelenting in her complaining. But at the end of the day, I love her unconditionally and try to be the light in her life rather than making her darkest moments harder to conquer.
He is very disrespectful towards her. While it may have been customary in the Middle Ages, submission to your husband is a thing of the past. A married couple is consisted of two equals forming a whole. If one outweighs the other, the relationship is bound to be unbalanced.
But the knots in my family are repairable if we all work together to improve one another and as a unit. But if one does not pull their weight, our relationships can never be mended. The intervention involves open communication lines. I’ve tried fixing things before with a family Bible study, but there were more attacks than peace treaties negotiated. Yet there are other ways to fix this. Maybe spending more quality time together. With time, the solution will become clear.
