In every conceivable manner, the family is linked to our past, bridge to our future. – Alex Haley
1) When You Are a Mother You Realize How Challenging and Rewarding This Role Is
Every possible color on an emotional spectrum is present in my life. I didn’t know how fast and easy one can go from being exhausted to angry and impatient, then right away feel regret and shame for not controlling this flow of emotions. These feelings should end up with laughter and tenderness after all.
Raising kids is not easy, and knowing that I am not the only one who does not always know how to react to screaming and rolling on the floor, and how to perceive some bad temper towards other kids in a friend’s house – helps me to strive for more knowledge by listening to the ones that are more experienced. I read the authors who learned a lot on their parenting journey.
2) Parenting Is a Life Exam and You Choose to Study and Pass It When You Decide to Have a Child
This process involves a lot of explorative reading. And not until I got acquainted with the works of Alice Miller, Adem Gunes, and some other pedagogues, psychologists, and teachers – I found answers to some questions crowding in my head.
There is no way anyone can predict the future of their kids. You see, you cannot predict to a 100% certainty if your tomorrow will turn out to be exact to your plan. But I wanted to make sure I do the best possible choices and make right decisions concerning my kids every day with the goal in mind to raise not ‘good’ (which means in parenting language ‘obedient’ kids) but happy and loving, kind and caring, thoughtful and creative, responsible and confident, independent and fulfilled personalities.
3) ‘Good’ = ‘Obedient’ Is Not Always Desirable and Some Resistance to Parents Can Be a Positive Sign
When fear is used – kids do whatever they’re told without thinking, just to please and obey adults. These children may become what their parents want them to be and lose themselves on this way.
There is a big difference between a child doing something and believing it is the right thing to do, and another kid that is just following the instructions. The first way creates independent thinkers and the second leads to unpredictable results.
Today this kid is listening to his parents without questioning and does everything he is told immediately, and tomorrow he does the same – but now he listens to someone else, his peers – and these people may not be the lot you’d have picked.
If your ultimate desire is to help your children to set and meet their own goals – then be prepared to find out that they may make choices and embrace values that aren’t the same as yours.
It is not easy to keep the big picture in mind and focus on long-term goals rather than on an immediate compliance. We need to consider what our children need rather than just what we’re demanding from them.
Conclusion
Motherhood is a never-ending learning process, and there is no one book to suit every scenario and one rule to follow in each situation. Every family is a different book to write and every mother and father is an author of a unique kind.
Family discussions, with old and young alike taking part, can be as stimulating as sparks that ignite a fire. – Spanish saying
1) Every Child Is Born With the Growing Desire to Discover the Unknown
Curiosity governs his actions and you need to satisfy it and help it to develop into a conscious longing to learn, that in later years will determine his success in life. He perceives you as a magician that knows everything and has numerous wonders.
You reach into your bag, take out the phone and put it to your ear and listen and talk back, you put it back and grab a bottle of water, put it on the table and place a cookie on it that you just pulled from the same charmed sack. Don’t be surprised when this little adventurer approaches your bag as soon as you put it down and starts his discovery process, taking everything out and examining every object. Let him satisfy his curiosity, when he is done he probably won’t disturb the contents of it anymore.
But if he continues to do so every time you leave the room or just turn around, and you can tell that now it is a mere play – not curiosity; then you can show him a sign of your disapproval.
2) Be Careful When Distinguishing Between Curiosity and Misbehaving
He is a smart little guy and will read the expression on your face: knitted eyebrows and stiff lips. If you are careful when distinguishing between curiosity and misbehaving, you will reap the fruits of your efforts soon enough. One day traveling you visit a wonderful ancient church with colorful frescos, golden candelabras, and stained glass windows. You come a bit earlier to have enough time to wander around and then to listen to the organ music. Your son will look around with his eyes wide open and a smile on his face, taking time to examine each painting.
When you quietly call him to have a seat beside you he will show ‘behavioral discipline’ and sit beside you and listen with you, maybe still occasionally looking around. You did a great job thinking ahead and coming earlier to give him time to contemplate the beauty of the place.
You may see another family with kids. They came just in time to sit down and listen to the music. The mother keeps reproaching the kids for not sitting still. The father may threaten them with what he may do when they leave the place. And the little ones try to obey and hide the burning desire to look around and see what is on that wall behind them and the one on the left, and to learn why there are multiple colors and sun comes through the windows in rainbow-like rays. These kids will get used to bottling their emotions up to save themselves from scolding.
3) Create Emotional Freedom in Your House
Your effort will determine your future success as a parent and you will be proud of your children. Discipline is important. The goal is to create true harmony between the emotional world and conscience.
If you govern in your household by the rules you never explain properly so that little soul may understand and admit them – you teach external discipline – one without understanding. Kids will obey because of fear of punishment, not because they internally comprehend the importance and meaning of these rules. And when the very person who introduced the rules is gone, the kids won’t follow them anymore – there will be no threat to force them to do so.
But if you take time to explain every disciplinary action to your child in a way so that his conscience will recognize and acknowledge it – whatever happens in the future, with you beside him or when you are gone – his conscience will remind him the good and bad, true and false, love and hate.
Conclusion
Conscience is the most sensitive scale that perfectly distinguishes between right and wrong. Be an example of a principled centered life, governed by your conscience and this way you will teach your child to balance the emotional world with the help of internal discipline. Sooner or later the time will come when only those treasures will help him to be a good person. Make sure you supply him with all he needs and you will be proud of your child for making this world a better place.
Very often we travel the world over in search of what we need and return home to find it. – George Moore
1) We All Are Equipped With the Perfect Defense System
This inner defense mechanism keeps our inner selves at peace from outside intrusion. Some are experts in this art, some are good, and some forget how to turn on the safety barrier.
But we are born with it perfectly adjusted. Look at a child who just lost everything he ever loved and cared about: his parents, his house with his dear toys – everything. And you see him smiling and playing in a sandbox. This behavior doesn’t mean that the child is insensitive. That only tells us that his soul cannot tolerate what happened and to protect the peace within him he denies it altogether.
2) How the Defense Mechanisms Work
Remember one of the numerous stories when a child completely forgets what happened as well as a few days or years before or after an emotionally devastating trauma. Such cases are known not just among kids but among adults as well. Our perfectly structured brain mechanisms work without fail unless we forget how to operate this system.
The same defense system triggers a child to suppress her emotions when she is not given enough love at home. To protect herself she learns how to be satisfied with less although her whole being cries for more and more. If she is faced with constant threats, comparisons with other ‘better’ kids and reproaches, she learns how to satisfy others in order to avoid conflicts.
3) What Triggers Fake Personality Development
The absence of unconditional love at home is a straight route to developing a fake personality. In her adulthood she will be constantly looking for what others expect from her, and how she needs to be perceived by them to be liked. That leads her to a ‘lie-life’ when she says things that are considered lies and doesn’t feel any pricks of conscience as she just got so used to pretending. She feels that it is normal and safe to say what is better for others to hear or for her to be praised for without even considering the moral side of things.
4) What Happens If a Child Is Constantly Abused at Home
If a child was constantly abused at home and was forced to bottle up her feelings for protection in that environment, she may develop internal aggressiveness that eventually will be released and directed either towards her younger siblings or other kids at school. Later in life she may seek a profession where she will have an opportunity to be authoritative and forceful towards others without judgment. She may choose to become a teacher, senior manager, or even a nurse – any profession that gives her some power.
5) Violence Only Breeds Violence
The forms of this demoralizing act can be physical, emotional or psychological. Someone said: “Advising a person in public is like insulting him.” This is one of the forms of violence as well as slapping a child and continuing to abuse him by asking: “Why are you crying?” Physical punishment may not be painful in terms of bodily suffering but it may cause a little child’s soul to bleed severely.
6) Developing a False, Deceiving Affection Towards Offender
Sometimes a child develops feelings of affection towards the person tormenting him. A parent constantly causing a little person to be stressed and afraid may find an increase in love from her child. This kind of love is deceiving and changes when a child grows up and feels freedom from his parent’s bonds.
The same happens when a teacher develops a dislike for some of her students. The very child experiencing disrespect and continuous reproaches tries to find all possible ways to get into the teacher’s pet circle by maybe peaching on others or starting to falsely believe that he likes what the teacher likes and starting to behave in a similar way. This mode of action is destructive to the personality as well. Again, a false personality takes charge of a child’s inner world and his true emotional peace is lost and forgotten.
7) The Importance of Cultivating Trust in Humankind
If a child faces a constant need to use protective mechanisms she starts to fear life and lose trust in humankind. To avoid this pitfall in upbringing your child needs to know that no matter what, even if she misbehaves, her mom and dad are going to love her just the same. An authoritative regime will lead to disastrous consequences.
8) The Vital Importance of Honesty and Sincerity at Home
Children are very sensitive to honesty and sincerity. They sense any ‘white’ or ‘black’ lie and develop the idea that it is normal to do so as the very ones they trust and love behave this way. Be aware of this and show an example of a noble spirit. There is no need to lie to hide your mistake and by doing so maintain the child’s respect.
Show that mistake is possible, and everyone can make it – even you, a highly praised and loved parent. The child understands that she can fall and come to you for comfort rather than telling a lie to justify her ripped trousers and a dirty shirt. The truth is always a better choice and it should be the only one.
Conclusion
Create natural surroundings for your child. As if outside in nature, when there is nothing to worry about: no one to disappoint, no furniture that you cannot draw at, no books you shouldn’t touch. That atmosphere sets your child free and you too feel more open to her and more willing to understand. Let her express her emotions and know that she will not be humiliated.
Only when you understand and admit in your heart of hearts that the being you are entrusted with is perfect and deserves respect can you bestow this world with a true gem of humankind.
It was nice growing up with someone like you – someone to lean on, someone to count on…someone to tell on! – Anonymous
1) When a Child Cannot Cope With His Internal Desires
What happens when a child’s conscience is sleeping, long forgotten? Conscience helps to cope with our internal harmful desires. When all that a child knew throughout his life is orders and expectations to behave a certain way – he loses self-control and the skill to judge what is good and what is bad by himself. Every child must have, and I cannot stress it enough, the abundance of unconditional love and understanding. Through this rejuvenating feeling he learns about all good and bad things in life.
2) When You See a Falsely Obedient Children
You have seen examples of falsely obedient children. They behave as expected when they are at home, trying to eliminate any conflicts with their parents and siblings. And as soon as they leave home they try everything as if they are rebelling. When grown-up, some may end up drug addicts, others can find pleasures in uncontrolled sexual behavior, and some individuals are not able to say ‘no’ to a tasty high-calorie snack and end up overweight. They hate themselves for the weakness they have no strength to fight.
The lack of true love at home when they were kids, made them uncertain if this feeling existed. This doubt is damaging beyond any degree. A person that is uncertain if sincere affection, compassion, and love are present in his life – is actually uncertain in anything, including himself.
3) When a Child Has the Lack of Personal Identity
The reason for all of the described above is the lack of personal identity. Let your child experience life. Be close by to explain and lead by example instead of forcing him blindly to follow your instructions just because you think this is right and that is wrong. These little adventurers need to experiment early on and learn how to live in peace with their consciousness.
Take time to explain things they are interested in and things you think important for them to understand. You will find that repeating the same thing is quite annoying, be patient – you will be rewarded for your loving effort.
Conclusion
When a four-year-old feels discomfort when making the blunder of breaking a toy he took forcefully from a smaller child – he wouldn’t do that again not because it disappointed you, but because he felt ashamed and saw the tears of another little child. Do not be cross, explain the meaning of tears on another child’s face.
You know that life is not all about joy and pleasure. They need to learn that as well with your help and support. Let them fly but keep your arms always ready to catch them if they fall, to embrace them and treat their wounds.
There was a place in childhood that I remember well, and there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairytales did tell. – Samuel Lover
1) It Is Important to Understand the Mechanisms That Govern Our Emotional World
To do so we need to go to our ‘inner place’ and find the ‘self’ – the personality that tells you to be depressed when it is sunny outside, the guy that brings intuition into play and employing it tries to tell you how to act or how to perceive this situation or person, it is the one that brings to the surface thoughts of suicide in a person whose life seems harmonious and fulfilling to an outside observer.
You cannot deny the existence of that ‘self’ within you. You should admit this presence and learn how to live in harmony with it. This is crucial for a thoughtful upbringing. You will be able to read the cause and effect of defense mechanisms that are turned on and off by the ‘self’ inside of every human being.
2) Don’t Think That Every Conflict Between You and Your Child Is a Competition You Need to Win
It is just the way children protect their dignity. Imagine someone telling you that you are irresponsible – your first reaction to such an offense will be to prove the opponent wrong and you blush and start to defend yourself. The same happens with your child when you tell him that he is untidy. His defensive reaction is not intended to offend you but to protect his inner ‘self’ – his dignity. Even babies do their best to protect their ‘self’. They cry if they sense any threat from a person looking at them.
3) No One Wants to Be Perceived Negatively
When you constantly tell your little one: “you are lazy, too slow, forgetful, clumsy” and so on – he will get into the habit of fighting the assaults and can even reach a violent state. No one wants to be perceived negatively, especially by the closest people – family members. But eventually, he’ll get tired of being defensive. He will feel like an alien in his own house.
You need to worry when your child stops protecting himself from harm and becomes silent. That means he has become too tough to understand his feelings or to be sensitive to any outside intrusion. An insensitive child doesn’t have strong principles to live by. He loses his identity. This is a real disaster. The child that became tired from constant attacks and became desensitized loses the taste of life, the joy of creation. Only the one whose inner place was cherished can experience with his heart, not just senses, the smell of a flower, the touch of wind on his hair, or the taste of a berry.
4) Mother’s Arms Should Be an Always Present Shelter From All Calamities
Troubles can be big or small, coming from a father or an older brother or sister, or the outside world. Mother will understand. She will be just but will love her child no matter what. Always remember that words are like birds – you let them out, and you will never be able to catch them again. Words create deep wounds in a heart that burn and can even leave scars that will last a lifetime. Be cautious about the birds you let fly out.
Conclusion
Do not try to be a conscience for your child. He already has one and needs to act accordingly. If you try to govern his actions all the time, he will follow the path you’ve chosen and forgets how to react to the inner call. He needs to see what is right and wrong through his own conscience, this way that skill will be with him forever. To make conscience an always present friend a child needs to get used to it always being around. Allow him to make mistakes and understand the cause and effect of them.
What one loves in childhood stays in the heart forever. – Mary Jo Putney
1) A Baby Born Is One of the Most Benevolent and Impeccable Creations
The child has his dharma already written and there is no need to put too much pressure on ourselves thinking over all the possible scenarios for the play of his life. We often write a script of step by step acts of this play: kindergarten, school, college; who should he hang out with and what should he do to earn his living in the future. To follow the written plan too closely in this life is of no use.
2) It Is Important to Be Adaptable to the Ever-Changing Social and Business Environment
We do not have the right to decide our kids’ destiny. The time will come and they will be out of your nest, building their own. Do not strive for full control over your children. Let them make their own decisions. Trust their judgment. They naturally know better what is good for them. Intuitively their body tells them to eat slowly – it is good for digestion. Your daughter may have a different view on how she wants to look today and she’s putting on this pair of socks because of the color, let her do so even though it does not match the rest of her outfit. Being small and vulnerable she used to sleep and eat just at the time she needed it. How different would’ve been our life if all of us could’ve listened and heard our body’s language?
3) Everybody Needs a Place Where One Can Relax and Be Himself
If your child behaves differently or misbehaves, to be more exact, often when you are around and plays an obedient kid when you are not there – it is very normal. He reveals his true self in front of the person he loves and trusts the most. Analyze how you act in front of others in the office and at home with your spouse. You come home tired and let your irritation out – she or he will understand. Do you remember those moments? You need to express self-control to calm yourself down and not to put all your troubles on your spouse’s shoulders. Everybody needs a place where one can relax and be himself, even if at this very moment it is not the best version of you. Kids need to have atmosphere of freedom where their most cherished people will always understand.
Conclusion
The result of too much pressure in trying “to teach good habits” may be the lack of time and effort to cultivate a strong personality. If your child obeys you all the time she ends up living a life to please others and think that to be happy she needs to make others happy. You want a resolute child, one who knows what she wants from life, whose world is full of colors and deep emotions. Develop her sense of trust by allowing her to comfortably express herself within her family. Let her share her feelings with you, do not think they are not serious and childish – for this little soul it is ultimately important to find support and compassion in her parents.
Under heaven, all can see beauty as beauty, only because there is ugliness. All can know good as good only because there is evil. Being and nonbeing produce each other. The difficult is born in the easy. Long is defined by short, the high by the low. Before and after go along with each other. – Lao-tzu 2nd Verse of “Tao Te Ching”
1) We Live in a World of Contrasts
This verse from the book of wisdom teaches us about paradoxical existence. We live in a world of contrasts. To understand and appreciate beauty, we need to learn about ugliness. We can see white because we know what black looks like. The truth is born in lies. Pain makes pleasure so alluring.
As a mature parent, you know the harsh and bitter taste of betrayal. You learned about the spiritual agony of a suffering heart and the physical soreness of broken bones. Your desire to protect your child from all the hardships of this world is understandable. Is it possible to put him in the shell of your care and safekeeping? Yes, but this existence is miserable. He won’t be able to recognize genuine friendship and companionship without knowing how disappointment and treachery hurts.
Will he value and cherish his good health unless he knows how bitter the taste of medicine is and how sore is the bruise from a clumsy fall? The minute you are not around anymore… what do you expect him to do? To learn how to clear up the road without ever holding a machete in his hand? Now without your warning and mentorship he’ll cut and bruise his gentle hands severely because they are not used to hard work.
2) Your Mission on This Parenting-Journey
To assist a child, we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely. – Maria Montessori
Your mission on this parenting-journey is to create an environment of trust and security so that your child feels love in the quantity he needs. Respect his emotions and value his innocence. Never ridicule his pure soul. Show an example of a principle-centered life. Do not think that if you teach him to trust, he may be too naïve when the time comes to stand on his own two feet. He will develop the intuition and sensitivity to read dishonesty if he knows the value of true feelings. Seeing your loving attitude, he will note any trace of betrayal ahead of time.
He will still make mistakes here and there, but they will be few in comparison with the disastrous consequences that could’ve taken place in a different case scenario. Imagine a child growing up in a family where he is scolded and misunderstood. The environment of selfishness and lack of love: where whatever love he gets is controlled and given in small amounts. Later in life he won’t be able to see white and black in people and relationships. He won’t be able to trust his friends or spouse. He will look for a deceitful motive in any person’s actions towards him. He’ll suspect unfaithfulness everywhere. And the pain of it he will taste in full because choosing the right person will be hard.
Without experiencing true love and care, he won’t know if what he’s got is good and worth cherishing. He will see a gaze of humiliation and think it may be a loving one because he saw the same thing coming from the very people he used to trust with his whole heart.
Conclusion
Love is the key. Respect is the door. And happiness in life is the path that this door leads to.
Your assignment in this journey of parenting life exploration is to be a guide, not a guard; to explain the nature of things, good and bad, not hide their existence. Do not try to clear the road but predict the stony ground or the dark path through a forest full of dangers and prepare him, equip him with the right gear for the hard trip.
Spend precious moments stubbornly biting your lips, speaking sternly, and acting openly… – Olya Aman
Dima was my first boyfriend. A terrible bore as he was, I loved him dearly. I always thought him to be above the average in the firmness of his mind. He read classic literature and spoke the language of 19th century romance. We were young and very much in love.
Dima was a sensible and handsome young boy of twenty at the time. I was a smart, pretty girl of eighteen with merry grey eyes and lofty, intelligent forehead. Today when I see a photo of us together, I remember how contagiously happy we were.
One incident ruined our happiness. Dima thought himself deceived, duped, and hopeless. A slough scandal was spread through the entire village and finally found its way to Dima’s ears. The tempest of doubt and dread, of jealousy and rage, almost blinded him. Some shallow minds believed it right away. People that wished us bad luck were rejoicing.
I got to the root of it only by hints and innuendos, as no one dared to speak openly with me about it. I stopped any intercourse with the poisoned humanity, the ones that readily accepted the circulating vile slander.
Why it is normal to rip up the ties.
Dima’s spirits rose almost to madness when he heard the dreadful story of me being unfaithful to our love. I thought nothing could crush his faith in our shared future. The story was a lame one. Unfortunately, he believed that I could swear love to someone else.
The first night after discovering that his best friend was an instigator of the slander, a paroxysm of anger disquieted Dima’s breathing, and he bitterly reproached himself for the moment of weakness. His friend, a worthless reprobate, an impracticable fool, gave food to envenomed tongues, and they started to talk about me as if I was a little frivolous kitten going around and gifting my love to insipid individuals.
Eventually, Dima cut all ties with that false friendship. Forgot the way to his friend’s house. Wiped him off his phone contacts and social media accounts. He brushed the dirt of this acquaintance from his life. After what happened, Dima knew too well to keep such people at a great distance from his life.
Why, or rather when the opinion of others matters.
My heart rejoiced when my parents and my elder sister took my side in this insinuated story. I felt strong support and stoic faith from them. My close friends showed me the true value of their relationship. People that sincerely wished me to be happy took pains to consider everything thoroughly. They recollected what they knew about me and found not even one reason to surrender to the falsehood circulating in the village.
Why take the reins in your hands.
This occurrence served as a great lesson for both of us. Dima’s so-called friend, being a jealous and wicked person, ruined our happiness. He did his utmost to bring about a fatal collapse to the true love between two faithful hearts.That unfortunate affair taught me to avoid provokingly jealous, heartless, and artificial people. I clean my life from any false attachment.
Today I make my life a pleasant experience, awakened by grand people. The mention of any piece of news that concerns me is heart-felt when coming from a loving soul and easily forgotten when coming from a distant and unimportant acquaintance.
Conclusion
People tend to talk. We may like it or not — but they talk about us. It may aggravate you, but I would encourage you to take no notice of judgments that come from people that do not bring value to your life. Whatever they think should be considered a slight thing. It by no means should disturb the equanimity of your mind or had any injurious effect upon your appetite.
A true friend will cry and laugh with you, not at you. The one that gives you handsome compliments in your face and talks about you with much malicious philosophy behind your back is not a friend. Rejoice when you find out about some false attachment. Let this person go as far from your life as possible and wish him good-speed. Remember that the ones that stay — worth hundreds of those that had left. This is a natural life improving, beautifying process. You multiply positivity but getting rid of negativity.
By the way, it is better to be talked about. That means people find your life interesting and for sure a better topic to discuss than whatever their own existence presents. So, let them do what they please and continue to live as YOU please.
Here is a conundrum indeed! How soon can you solve it?
Olya Aman
My object in parading this private affair before the reader is to commemorate the remarkable series of events and convey the evidence of what love can build and what it can destroy. – Olya Aman
I present to you here a true story with written evidence that came to my possession through the hands and words of the primary witnesses, who happen to be my friends. I intend to preserve everybody’s incognito in this tale, so let me reveal no names, no places.
Imagine a tiny town where everybody knows each other. If you think this place quiet and unremarkable, you cannot be farther from the truth. People here invent the most mysterious crime affairs to amuse themselves. The outcome of this tale proved to be the zenith of one family’s happiness and, hopefully, the nadir of their troubles.
Mother
I was asked to exaggerate nothing and suppress nothing from what happened more than thirty years ago. My imagination tends to people the darkness of those days with additional terrors sometimes. I’ll do my best to restrain from it.
I used to be a night-club, knock-about-city young girl who was determined to teach herself a lesson by marrying a simple police officer and moving to the smallest town ever existent. After the hubbub and bustle of a big city, I hoped to find soul-soothing serenity in the three-story walls of ancient buildings, corner grocery shops, wooden benches close to every threshold, and the grand loving eyes of my man.
Calm and quiet were showering upon me thick and fast. The monotony of my existence started to grind me away soon enough. I managed to hold the rapture of boredom and adventure starvation for the first three years, and the three that followed were hell for both of us indeed. My husband should have known better than marrying a woman like me.
We were living in constant gnawing anxiety. The real reason for my unhappiness was in my allusion to pain. I was sure that my relationship was lacking the spark. I was longing for emotional suffering and physical agony. It seemed to me that only torture could make me feel alive. The grim orchestra in my head was playing about the passion I lacked and the pain I craved. My tumultuous thoughts were driving me nuts.
I droned my days away in that gloomy town. Household chores: cooking, cleaning, a little bit of reading, and dreaming about some other man beside me, some different life endured. I should have found something to do in that dreary place. But what could I find with my political science degree? Too sophisticated for that place I was.
Oddly enough, only fear still kept us together. My husband, I suspected, feared loneliness and to set everyone’s tongue wagging about our private affairs. I feared my son rejecting me for breaking the family and my inner desire to inflict pain on myself and my husband. Trouble was brewing; I was asking for it.
I anticipated some unfortunate event for some weeks before that day. It started as always with a silent breakfast. Both my husband and I were tired of keeping the picture of a happy family for the sake of our six-year-old son. Mind you, we never as much as raised voice to each other. We simply didn’t talk but for hateful ‘good morning’ and ‘have a good day’.
My husband made his lunch, put a few apples in a bag for our son to take to his grandma, and both of them were gone with the usual ‘see you tonight’. At half-past six, my husband came home. I warmed up his dinner and said, “I will call your mom and ask if they are home by now? I will pick him up and take him to his karate class at seven-thirty.”
I picked the phone and dialed the number. Our son was not there. His mom thought we had some other thing scheduled. My husband grabbed the receiver from my shaking hand and pushed me gently aside. “It’s ok,” he said to his mother. He told her we forgot about some other arrangement and that he was at his friend’s place. What was he talking about? What friend? What kind of arrangement? Those questions were whirling in my head.
This done, my husband looked at me in a strange way. The intensity of his gaze silenced me. It was a look of a hungry, watchful reproach. “I’ll find him. Don’t you worry,” he said, picked up his jacket, and was gone.
Father
My family was always unspeakably precious to me. There was nothing I couldn’t do to save it. Bare it in mind while reading this narrative of mine. I loved my wife more than anything. I knew from the very beginning, she was not the woman a simple chap like me could catch and hold still in his hands. She needed drama, and drama was a rare coin in my native town. I had to mind that currency myself.
It was a custom with us to take our son to my mother’s place, so my wife had a day to herself. She said she needed that time alone, and I submitted. I seldom could say ‘no’ to anything she wanted. I usually drove to the parking lot of a three-story apartment building where my mother lived.
Our son used to get out of the car, give me his ‘see you later, dad’, enter the building and his grandma’s flat on the second floor all by himself. This brief trip gave him a sense of maturity, something to add to his list of ‘I can’.
What was wrong this time? Why wasn’t he at his usual place?
When home again, I said to my wife that I knocked at each and every door of this building, asking about our boy. No one as much as saw him that day. She blamed me, and I, half-expecting such reaction, didn’t object.
She was out of all sorts, now saying in her querulous, rattling whisper how she missed her son, now flinging distinct words of hatred into the air, now shedding a gust of tears and scratching her face, now heaving convulsively barely able to talk, imploring me to do something.
That was her niche in life, her long-awaited drama. So much feeling in every gesture — that was my beastly little girl again. I had to slap her on the face to bring her back to senses.
What an outcome from this insult! I never as much as raised a thought against a woman not talking about a hand. She caught my hand and pressed it to her burning cheek. She kissed it, then higher. My arm, shoulder, collarbone, ear lobe — what an electric shock was going through every little cell of my body! It had ceased to be my own.
The desire we both felt expanded into a series of scenes with pain and pleasure united, angry kisses, throwing each other against all surfaces. Bruising her flesh, she was getting the unsettling inner feeling out, releasing her emotional distress. When all was over, she was lying on a couch in dreamless slumber. I went out into the night to look for our son.
Grandmother
My old, cast-away husband was out of our lives for twenty years. He left us when our son was twelve. Not that he planned it. They sentenced him to three years for a drunken scuffle in a local bar. One man almost died from the severe beating my husband was to blame for. He got out of jail and out of our lives.
On our son’s thirty-second birthday, the old beggar brought his shaking frame to my flat and pleaded to have a chat with his son. I was beside myself with indignation, to say the least. I hated my husband for leaving us. Over a year, he was patiently asking for permission to be a part of our family.
My son and I agreed to see him now and then, with one condition, he had to keep it a secret. My son didn’t mention it to his wife. I never openly met him outside. Were we ashamed of him? He WAS a dosser, after all. Or were we punishing him in this way? I don’t know for sure.
I was angry with myself for being silly and liking, I couldn’t admit at the time, but LOVING was the right word, my husband, during all those years he was away. I couldn’t shake off the inveterate distrust which weighed for all those years on my spirits.
That is why when this alien and strangely familiar person asked to see his grandson, I could only stand rooted in the ‘No’ and ‘Never’. It was a very trying time for me. Eventually, he had tamed me. One day my son and I submitted to his pleadings and promised to arrange everything.
Grandfather
I was old and sick and tired of my lonely life. I had reasons of my own to leave my family. The rods of iron with which prison surrounded me were ever-present in my mind. At some point, I felt that my life was at its lowest ebb. Then and there, like a pitiful mongrel, I crept back meekly to my family. For the first time in my entire life, I humbled myself to pleading for forgiveness with all the patience I still had left in me.
I went to my old hut near the lake. I used to go there in the glorious old days when fishing. This shabby place was creepy, just as I was at that stage of my life. But still, those walls were much better than any bench I used to call home. For over a year, I waited for my wife and son to soften for me. I didn’t put my mind in total blank with the drink. I abandoned this degrading habit because I knew it could force me to lose every inch of the ground I had gained.
The day my son patted me on the shoulder and promised to let me see my grandson, my heart gave a great bound. This news almost turned me giddy. The thought half maddened me with delight. I spent the following couple of days getting ready, putting things in order at my lonely cabin. The little chap needed a cozy place to stay. I exhausted myself with plans for the future rendezvous with my boy. I knew just then — I’d lived through all misfortunes to see my grandson, to get things straight with my son, and to pray for my wife’s forgiveness.
I didn’t remember myself being as tender-hearted as at the moment my son brought this boy in his car on that day. I was fool enough to shed a couple of tears. I wanted to wipe away the wrongs my family suffered through with this last effort of submissive affection. All the gold left of my wasted nature, I poured at the feet of my grandson. I keep the memory of those two days in my heart of hearts.
Son
The air was close and stagnant in that hut. This old man was kind but rude, and he looked almost cruel. I liked him right away, though. How can it be is clean past my comprehension even now, thirty years since? He said, “Don’t middley-coddley, there a good boy. Nothing to be worried about. We’ll have a rattling good time fishing.” The old man said I could call him grandpa, and I did. I knew by my childish instinct, that was seldom wrong, he was my friend.
I remember as if it was yesterday that I never felt myself so mature, so bold and courageous, so skilled and manly. I stayed with this wrinkled weather and life beaten person for two long and memorable days. What a blast! Running in the fields, making birdhouses, playing with the shabby little dog, fishing, and cooking our fish soup over a riverside fire.
My father came with the haste of happiness in his feet in the evening of the second day. I haven’t seen him like that before. I was happy to see this change, and perhaps a little piqued too.
Mother
My husband could not sit down alone to wait through the crisis of our life. He left the house that night after we had the most sensual experience. He remembered that he was leaving an anxious heart at home and phoned me a few times, updating me on the progress of his search. He called me tender names, and I didn’t humor him as I used to.
On the second day in the early evening hours, he came home. I met him with my entire being, imploring for some uplifting news. He didn’t have any. Then I gave him a defiant look, and with mockery, I eagerly blamed him again for what had happened. I should have gone to look for my boy myself. Why did he persuade me to stay at home and wait for some developments? Oh, how my heart sank under a dread. It was beyond words.
Then he confessed. He said he didn’t plan it. We barely exchanged a few words those days, and he simply forgot to tell me he’d arranged for our son to spend a day with his grandfather. I didn’t even know the man existed. My husband never mentioned him. I assumed his father was dead. When he came home and saw my worried look when I was talking on the phone with his mother, only then he felt a plan forming itself in his brain.
He wanted to enliven my love for many years now. He didn’t know how to shake that lethargy I seemed to live in. He said that the pretense of searching for his son, the common disaster he invented, the tears and worries that both of us shared for almost two days brought us together. We were a family, at last, a mother and a father struggling to find their son.
Oh, how mad with rage I was. I called him nasty names. I was storming through our house, smashing the furniture. But in the midst of all those turbulent feelings, there was a glow of hope in me. Hang it all; he was right. I deserved the shock and shake I’d got. I was alive with burning emotions. I breathed passion in the air.
The strange march of events during those two days changed the course of our lives forever. Happy life ever after? Oh, by Heaven, no. But eventful, for sure. We made it a rule always to break the monotony and to meet our passion half-way. When our boy enjoyed time with his grandparents, we had our hurry-skurry adventures. I used to tell him, “Remember it doubly and trebly to make me FEEL your love.”
Olya Aman 