A story of maturation, motherland, and sorrow.

I wonder why lighthouse keepers choose a job knowing that they will go mad. Have they been told about the soul that rest in that tectonic mass? Have they not heard that the sea is the origin of life? Have they asked if they may keep the light? When will women remember they are the keepers of life? When will society stop punishing women for the act of birthing a child? I have many questions and limited time, this is my last life.

MATURING

My grandfather had strict table manners. He was the one who raised me. Perhaps, this is the reason for my particularness, no taking at the table, no laughing while eating, eating then drinking, licking the plate clean, and then licking the wounds not to be seen. He fed me fishtails and pig fat which I actually enjoyed at the time. So you see, he was at my service. As a man, he was sometimes patient and kind. He had a big mouth, funny-looking teeth, and an old-sounding belly laugh. As a grandfather he was unexpectedly mean, he would pinch my ear. And in return, I would hit his head with my toy pot-and-pan.

He was the one who taught me to rebel in humorous remarks. I inherited his daringness and his eyes. They were striking blue and light. As he aged they turned cloudy and white. As if though, his gaze slowly became one with the changing sky. I imagined that is where he spent most of his time as his remembrance left us. When they would anchor him down into our time, he would cry. I felt terribly sad for him, I wanted him to leave in peace. Though I could have never predicted how terribly I would miss him. Most of all, I miss his hands and the way he held mine. Those are things we don’t think about, the smell of our loved ones or the sound of their voice. We don’t think of the irreplaceable manners that make them familiar.

While he was transitioning he was fragmenting, I like to believe he was collecting his earthly belongings and rewriting the wrongs that were done onto him. But to those to whom he was indebted in love, he was seemingly falling apart. I imagine our elderly stay until we allow them to leave. We pull on them and push them back down and I think the living can be cruel in that way. We bare the pain until the moment when the grievances turn into acceptance and detachment. Then follow condolences and reconnection to our ancestry. There is beauty and peace in letting go with dignity.

PRESENCE IN ABSENCE

While he was still here, and when I first arrived, he told me stories of when he was young. With me, he gladly savored in the adventures ones. My mother stuffed me with the tragic ones. She always found a way to serve me with more than I could digest at that age. Through her story telling I learned of his early childhood. My grandfather had to escape his home as a boy during the invasion of his village in the war. She told me of the long winters of his life, and of his older brothers who he had lost when he was young. She told me of all the ways in which his life was unfair. But because I was forced into maturing, I knew to read between the lines. In the stories of his life, she revealed his inadequacies as a father and her own troubled childhood. He was an even stricter father. I don’t know the extent of his sternness, but I could imagine she feared him.

His position as a father was reinforced by the times. They lived under an oppressive political system, enclosed in censorship that demanded obedience. Both my grandfather and his daughter were denied movement, denied thought, denied autonomy, denied self-determination, and denied personhood. Some of the cruelty they experienced was due to their ethnicity. Which etched at the formation of their identity. My grandfather lived through more than one war. Though one is enough. Both of them were collateral victims of their circumstances. Yet despite them, they both raised families, they are highly educated individuals and they are two of the funniest and most mischievous people I have ever met. Coincidentally they were born on the same day.

My mother studied medicine in part due to the experience of aggravating helplessness from her earliest life. You see, my grandfather had an autoimmune disease that would react unpredictably. This sent him into shock a couple of times. On a regular day, he would disappear into the medical care and she would have to go to sleep, unsure if she would see him again the next day. Due to his condition, they ate humbly, and they sacrificed. Nobody spoke at the dinner table. I had a sense that she picked up on the weight of the dire situation and concluded that if only she were less demanding, maybe smaller, maybe excellent her father would get better. His absence took her innocence. His disease took attention away from what she needed, his reassurance.

HOW MUCH SUNLIGHT CAN A WOMAN ABSORB BEFORE SHE’S BURNED ALIVE

When I first arrived, I was amazed. I thought the world was a wonderful place. What surrounded me met all of my expectations and had answers to
all of my curiosities. In those times I was very much alive. I disappeared in swamps, caves, and bodies of water for days of my summers. I was fed by sunlight and entertained by wildlife. I needed very little, next to being alive.

When I first arrived, I was met by The Sun, my golden Mother, her skin was olive-toned and always warm, her smile beamed, and her irises resembled cosmological planetary placements. She was hands down one of the most divine creature I’ve gazed at in my many lives. My love of knowledge began in those comforting beds next to the bed-time-stories she narrated. She was a walking encyclopedia, she revealed to me that humans documented, exchanged, learned, imagined, and discovered through stories. My mother was effortless and strong. She was my ease and my backbone. She was radiant and self-determined, she was stunning and she was wise. The bitterness and disconnect came years too late. When I too, grew out of the sweetness. Then our relationship was especially strained.

WELLS THAT WHISPER WORDS OF WISDOM TO ESTRANGED CHILDREN

Over time I figured out humans are more complicated than it seems at first glance, and that many of them did not know love. Many were fooled to think it was conditional. That you had to earn it somehow. Maybe through your dedication and sacrifice. They tried to teach me as much and in return I tried to show them they were obviously wrong. Clearly, this was not the way to speak to humans, because they protested. It got me into a lot of trouble in my early days. Because back then, I needed them. Whenever I felt rejected I would go to the wells, to birds, to trees, to plants and cry for days of my falls. They understood and whispered to me comforting words.

There I felt I belonged all along.