Unlike the title suggests, this last Mother’s Day wasn’t my own. To my dismay, not one person in this big world has ever come up with the idea of a Sister’s Day, so I won’t be celebrating family-related occasions for a while. What my title meant to say was that this was the first mother’s day I actually celebrated with my mom. I did when I was a child, but after I grew up, I started ignoring the occasion just like I partially ignored Christmas and birthdays in general. But this year I felt like my mom deserved to be remembered, and I felt ashamed of myself for depriving her of her day for so long.
And here’s how I came to that conclusion. My little sister adores me. She worships me on a regular basis, and truly believes me to be the best kind of person there is. The way she looks at me, with complete and blind admiration, makes me feel so worthy of it all, even when I know I’m probably not. She never misses an opportunity to say how much she loves me, and how much she appreciates the little things I do for her, like washing and drying her favorite blanket or heating up the milk for her cereal; “Oh, Mana! Thanks for keeping me warm! You’re so beautiful for doing that, and I love you so much!” She calls herself Super Girl, and while others are just mom, dad, or family, I’m Super Mana, the only one who gets to be a superhero. I taught her a little song I used to sing when I was a kid, about the frog that lives in the lake and still doesn't wash his feet. Well, Cookie called the other day, with the neighbor by her side, and they left a message when I didn’t pick up. They were singing the frog song, and when the neighbor sang “Mana doesn’t wash her feet”, baby sister got extremely mad at him, yelling that “yes, mana does! She does, too!” I was so deeply moved by that statement. Nothing to do with my feet, of course, but the fact that she refuses to believe I would be capable of anything bad touches my very soul. She loves me. This little creature sees in me the person she wants to be, and she doesn’t know how messed up I am. She doesn’t know about my depressive days, or about my eating disorders, or that I usually hurt people because I talk too much. If she knew, I bet she wouldn’t care, either. I thank God every day for being adored by someone like her.
Then I remembered when I was a kid, and how I used to adore my mother. The world meant nothing to me as long as I had her approval. Many people tried to tell me she wasn’t perfect, and I started hating them all. How dare they, messing with the image of my mother? But then I grew up, and I saw in her the woman I never wanted her to be. I saw her human flaws, the way we think and act so differently, and that heavenly adoration was gone. The moment I realized this I cried, and pleaded with God to please, never let that happen to my sister. I begged God to never let her adoration towards me become any less of what it is today. May her love for me never change, never be diminished. May she always defend me with all her heart and strength, like she does today. But more than anything, I asked God to never let me hear from her mouth the things I have said to my mom. Never let her think of me the things I have thought of my mother. Things I regret deeply, and that I can’t take back. Things that I now know how much must have hurt her, things that should never be said to someone who was once adored. And that’s how I decided to celebrate Mother’s Day. I didn’t do much, but it was a start. It was the first step of an ungrateful daughter trying to redeem herself and change her own fate.
I wish I could tell my mom how sorry I am, and how stupid I was to ever hurt her. But I can’t, not yet. I’m not the perfect person Evelyn believes me to be. I made my sister promise she’ll love me forever, an act of pure desperation. Being the angel that she is, of course she said she would, that her love would never change, but I know better than to expect such a thing. All I can ask for is that her love always be enough to make me feel as loved as I do now. Until her adolescence comes to steal away my joy and happiness, I’m enjoying our morning love, when she wakes up and smiles when she sees me next to her. I enjoy every “I love you” that I get from her, and I reciprocate. I’m also keeping all of my voice messages. That ought to show the neighbor not to mess with Super Mana.
May 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment