Diving in Open Water

Some years ago my grandmother passed away. She had done so at a respectable age, had said the mourners at the time. There was an important age difference between her and her children. Within a four year span, she had three babies to care for, at a time when menopause should have been her biggest concern. I imagine the generation gap must have brought a wide difference in expectations on the children. Although my mother always conformed to was what was expected of her, she was none-the-less a very resentful submissive.

Shortly after my grandmother’s passing and burial, my mother started emancipating. She attended classes, started travelling, she even considered the possibility of meeting someone new, without success. She assumed that in time, I would also yield to her and demonstrate obsequious deference like she had done to her own mother.

Years later, during a particularly tedious phone conversation, my mother declared that her mother’s death had been a blessing to her; a true deliverance, that on that day, her life had changed for the best. She was finally free to live her life without having to justify herself, without feeling judged, criticized or guilty. In fact, according to her, there was nothing more freeing, more liberating to a woman than the day her mother passes away.

“Well… I’ll be looking forward to it. Hopefully it will happen sooner rather than later.”

“That’s not at all what I meant. You are distorting everything I say. Why are you being so hurtful? You ungrateful girl, I have done nothing but love you since the day you were born,” she said.

As Shakespeare wisely said “Me thinks that the lady protests too much”. Anyhow, I suspect that she might be right and that perhaps the same applies to boys with their fathers. Fortunately, I won’t have to wait years for my turn to freedomhood, therapy has in great part, already freed me from this emotional burden.

The Pruning Shears

A few months ago, my father decided to find his ancestry, to build the family tree. At best of time, this endeavor would be fastidious and time consuming. In his case, the challenge is exponentially increased by the fact that my father was not only a bastard child who was later on adopted by his mother’s husband, but also by the mere fact that all but my father have already passed away, leaving very little information to start with. Fortunately, my father is very meticulous if not very patient.

Last week, my father called. He was thrilled by the progress of his work. He had managed to retrace both his biological and adopted father and their families, along with his mother, grandmother and so on all the way back to the native land.

Several had somewhat interesting deaths for lack of interesting lives. Most had married young, had large families. Many women had died in labor, many men at war. Poverty was everywhere. As my father pointed out, life was very hard back then.

All that was left for him to do was to put all the information he had gathered neatly on paper. He explained that starting with himself; he had built the tree by pairs of ancestors along with their children. As soon as the task would be completed, he would send me a copy. I could even, he had said, add my own name to it, if I wanted to…

The Other Girl

Last time I visited my parents was about three years ago. On that occasion my father’s girlfriend, Christine, decided that it was time for me to be brought up to date with my father’s friendships. What was the reasoning behind it, I cannot fathom. She had decided that I would meet them all on that day. My apparent lack of curiosity didn’t seem to deter. Kindly, she provided me with the come about of each friendship in great details. One of them was particularly odd. It was about Mark and Magda.

Mark, he had met on some ship, Magda was Mark’s wife. My father had met them years earlier, before they were married. Magda was about my age. As a child, she lived nearby my old boarding school. She never had a father but had adopted mine as hers. As a matter of fact, my father apparently gave her away on her wedding day. Even her two children considered him as their grandfather and call him so. How sweet! I recall my father mentioning his “grandchildren” during innocent conversations about birthdays and Christmases. As if it wasn’t enough, Christine was jubilant by the fact that we - Magda and I – were apparently absolutely identical in every aspect. We could be sisters. I was a little numb by the time we arrived at Mark and Magda’s home. We were sitting around the kitchen table drinking coffee. I was sitting directly in front of Magda. I was very quiet but she had much energy, she was chatty and bright, even funny. That we looked identical was an understatement. Not only could we have been sisters, we could have been twins, down to the same crooked front tooth, except reversed like looking at oneself into a mirror. When we left, she was thrilled to have met me at last, and wished for us to meet again. I was not.

Who was she really? Had I demonstrated more enthusiasm, what could have been the outcome of this meeting?