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.