Sunday, May 14, 2017

Happy Mother's Day! (I Hate My Mother)

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There is a small fraction of people who, when they write something (and this is not restricted only to blogs), and I read it, I marvel at what they've written. Their writing seems so effortless. The words chosen are perfect. The sentences, the grammar, the punctuation - it all flows in a structure so perfectly that I can only imagine what it's like to posses that ability. I always wonder, how many drafts and revisions were there before what becomes the published piece I am reading? A very small number of people posses the talent of writing something perfectly on their first draft. These are Ace Word-smiths who've thought long and hard about what they want to say and how they will write it a long time before one finger lands on the keyboard.

Writing well begins with the premise that one has some degree of competency with which to begin. After that, good writing comes from re-writing and re-writing and editing and editing. A lot. Excellent writing? That comes from being born with a God-given talent for writing and having another person as your editor who can arrange, rearrange, delete, add, revise and polish that piece of writing into an excellent final draft...the one which is published.

At my "old" blog, I wrote from February, 2005  to December. 2009.  I had planned taking only a short blog-break and intended to return just after the first of the year...2010. That never happened. Life sometimes takes us in a direction we didn't foresee, which was a large part of why I never returned to blogging until November, 2016,  when I started this one. I'd have preferred to pick up where I left off and still be publishing at the old site when I returned. But  I'd forgotten my password and the email associated with that blog expired as "active" years ago. Also, for me, that blog had served its purpose. I'm glad I didn't deleted it. I knew I'd return to writing online (at Blogger, Wordpress, etc) at some point, it was only a question of when.

At my old site, one goal I set for myself was publishing the acknowledgement of our holidays; Mother's and Father's Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Easter, Martin Luther King Day, Ramadan, Passover, Christmas, etc, etc, and so forth.

So, you're asking, "Dave, what does this have to do with Mother's Day?"

I give you the above preface, admittedly too wordy,  in order to say this: the last time I wrote and published a Happy Mother's Day post is May, 2009.  My Mom died a few years later. This is my first Mother's Day post since May, 2009.

Other than the intro, I didn't actually write anything for Mother's Day - I poached it. I mean, I found it in searching for inspiration of what I might write for this Mother's Day. But after reading what I'd found, I set aside my creative thoughts and ideas in lieu of copy and pasting the below.

I didn't bookmark where I found this, or who wrote it. I claim no authorship. I read it on what was basically a message board. If you know who wrote this, let me know, I'll be happy to attribute the author. It is brilliant.

* * *

I hate my mother..!!

I hate her for loving me too much, 

I hate her when she keeps her stomach empty just to feed me, 

I hate her, when she walks 2 miles just to provide us hot afternoon lunch in school so that we do not have to eat cold food, 

I hate her when she knows she is sick but gives me all the fruits we brought for her,

I hate her when she does not sleep the whole night, just to make some coffee for me when I need it,

I hate her when she eats the food made a day before and cooks the freshest thing for me, 

I hate her when she wakes up at 5 in the morning;  works till midnight to fulfill wishes of her family and not asking anything for her in return, 

I hate her when she is sick as hell but asks me If I am alright, 

I hate her when her finger is bleeding from cutting the vegetables and still cooking for us and doing house chores, 

I hate her, I weep when I see her soft hand turned so hard because of washing our clothes everyday, 

I hate it when someone accuses her for not doing something right and she just stands there and listens to it not saying a word,

I hate her when she picks up the smallest dish to have her food and hands us the best china dish we have,

I hate her when she wears old clothes and makes us wear the best clothes we can,

I hate her when she forcefully feeds me the last chapati when I can clearly see how hungry she is,

I hate her when she says, in our happiness lies her happiness when I can actually see how tired she is,

I hate her when I offer some help and she refuses as she does not want us to struggle in any manner,

I hate her when she does not sleep unless she makes sure we are comfortably asleep,

I hate her when she bears all the trouble of the world for us and keeps all them away as if nothing ever happened,

I hate her when she cries in a corner hiding from us because her hands were burnt by hot blazing oil while cooking for us and after that she was washing our clothes and trying to bear the pain,

I hate her when I know she is sick by fever but is still working,

I hated her, when I grew up and refused money from her as I started earning, she cried aloud because she felt that we do not need her anymore when she spent her entire life just for us.

What I wrote here does not cover even the millionth part of things she did for us. What our mothers do for all of us.

I am not able to comprehend that love, that unintentional selfless love, and I hate her even more, because I know I cannot return the tiniest bit of what she did for us.

 * * *

To all Moms, Grandmas, Step-moms...ALL MOMS - Have a Blessed Mother's Day today and every day, for you successfully accomplish thankless, tedious, repetitive tasks and jobs that no man would complete, let alone attempt. You seek absolutely nothing in return, not a reward, not even the acknowledgement for what you have done or for what you do every day that you may think goes unnoticed. It does not.

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Typo and grammar revisions 5/14/2017

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