"You ruined my day"

Sunday morning carried on with our usual routine: coffee, a little 2-lap jog around the neighborhood, and now clean up to get ready for church. D approached me with a look of slight anxiety. He was having one of his “Luke dilemmas” and needed some affirmation to relieve his fatherly guilt. It was a packed Sunday with an evening booked up for church meeting and thus he was not able to do their long bike route across the river. It would incur an extra hour just from the car trip itself. Years of majoring in guilt for both children, I have developed a coping mechanism more skillfully than the father. I gave him a boost of assurance: “He will be fine – just do the biking somewhere close.” After another dose of lecture “you are not to live for his happiness alone” from me, He called out to Luke from the bottom of the stairs to the TV room and proposed the alternative in an optimistic tone as an effort we both knew to convince more himself than Luke. We heard him reply ok. I arched my eyebrow, “see?” in short for “how easy is that”.

So that was it. At least I thought. They left shortly after for Luke’s Sunday music rehearsal and I continued on with my usual routine to get ready for church. “Sabbath rest” does not apply to an old woman like me or I seem to be violating it every Sunday before I head out to the door. Then the phone rang. Usually it meant something has been forgotten: Luke’s music or our nursery duty reminder. This time was neither. D’s voice was one of those “you won’t believe what happened”. They were making their usual Sunday round, the sacred 7-11 stop for D’s coffee and Luke’s donuts, when the father noticed the son’s unusual dejection. Donuts did not do their trick – that itself was an alarming signal. What’s wrong? D asked, only to be replied with “Nothing”. Our perfect son who lives for our approval is no mystery to read – you may not know what bothers him, but you would always know when he is bothered. Another round of “what” and “nothing” went on. Finally upon D’s insistent inquiry the truth came out. Luke said in a melancholic tone: “you ruined my day”.

One of those impulsive sentences that we have reserved unless we are provoked to retort back, it surely is not anyone’s favorite for both the giver and receiver. Silence set in between D and me just like that. For a brief moment, we were lost in words. Quickly enough, I came back with an incredulous “Really?”, which both he and I understood why and where the curiosity came from. Yes, really. He affirmed. We ended our call finally with an unresolved mystery hung in the air.

He would turn 25 by October; a full grown adult to say the least. As perfect as he may be in our eyes, he still has his moments or room to err and sin. I have always thought of the nursery rhyme “There was a little girl who had a little curl… when she was good, she was very, very good; but when she was bad she was horrid”. That just about summed up Luke’s life – 99% of “very, very good” and 1% of “horrid” – in the form of tantrum, absurdity or even insanity when no words or actions can console or resolve. But that sentence surely does not fit in either end. It was in fact normal and, yes, so appropriate.

So why the puzzle? What could possibly confuse us after dealing with the worst of “horrid”? For one, it was not one of his sentences. Moreover, it wasn’t his usual pattern of handling disappointment. Emotional outbursts: yes; logical expressions: not for people like Luke. I could think of all the sentences he has spoken all his life – all of which have been learned or coached products with little room for exception. Even the tone itself at times comes formulated or robotic. Autistic people do that. they are the stereotyped imitators. I recall him at 2 years old when he started talking how simple and minimal his vocabulary was. For the longest time before we found out the final diagnosis our communication had always been one-directional: words, phrases, numbers went freely into that mysterious bank of brain and yet little came out in a functional or meaningful way. He talked very little; at best he echoed.

Over 20 years of schooling and coaching, words continue to be his tormentor. I believe he is afraid or terrified to express himself with the exception of his interests or fixations. We have had the hardest time with him telling us what bothers him when he is plainly distressed. His fear to disappoint us outweighs his own disappointment thus the only mean with which his predicament may be resolved is also his gravest evil. In his world, emotions contain a black-and-white happy or sad while words are perceived in 2 simple categories - approval and rejection. In a nutshell, approval makes him happy and rejection makes him sad. Thus our almost-perfect son perpetually struggles with his own and our imperfection in a world that is anything but perfect.

Back and forth from the past to present, I was thrown into another whirlwind of emotions while I pondered on the 4 most ordinary words in a most extraordinary disclosure. I thought I had this simple and innocent creature figured out, but “you ruined my day” thwarted out all my expectation. What overwhelmed both of us, confusion included, was this exquisite sensation –surprise, gratefulness, and joy… I was thinking how this little shadow of life could continue to tug my heart like that, but most of all I wonder if anyone ever begin to understand when he said “you ruined my day” he made my day?

Fly Away

The answering machine light blinked on – a rare thing for this family with limited social connections. Most of the time, we get hung-up calls on the machine with long, blazing beeping protesting over the detesting screening device. I curiously, for caution’s sake too, played the message. It was from the renter telling the college son that the apartment he applied for has been rented to someone.

Since the discovery of the betrayal, his roommates’ deserting him, he has had no choice but to look for lodging for the upcoming year. Of 3 prospects, this one ranked top in both location and accommodations. The phone message officially put a dead end to this quest. With 2 weeks left for his current lease, he is back to square one.

Another strike, or rejection, for him – how ironic and yet predictable, I thought to myself. My mind raced crazily with mixed emotions. I have wanted him to move back home, but somehow I did not feel like celebrating. The right answer, for me at least, when it’s not what he wants, does not feel good. As any mother with a built-in desire for her children’s happiness, I ached for his sake.

I thought of that evening barely a week ago when I ached yet for a totally different reason. He was leaving after the dinner. We had driven over the bridge to hunt for that “Diners, drive-ins and Dives” recommended fried chicken. The drive was long and the food turned out to be a let-down. Oddly, no one seemed to mind except me. Somewhere during that disappointing dinner the subject of his next year’s where-about was brought up. I motioned that he should move back home. It seemed like a perfect solution for a desperate situation – he has less than 2 weeks left on his current lease with no prospect for new housing. There would be no headache for another move and/or temporary furnishing for the new place. The arguments were sound, enthusiastic and yet not at all well received. My perfect solution was met with anything but perfect response: a stone-cold rejection without a word. Soon enough the contagious silence passed though the kitchen and I too became one of the afflicted – dejected and quiet. The disappointment was too intense that I turned about to clean the after-dinner mess. Behind me across the kitchen he stood with the persistent silence. He was ready to leave now. He managed to say good-bye. The strained “I am going to go” was met with not so much a muttered “ok” from the mother. I heard the door open and he was gone. The shameful realization of his wound, though incurred by his first wounding me, hit me straight through my core. My hurt, though grave, was not greater than my guilt. I dropped the dishes and ran after him before he made to his car door. “Give your mother a hug”, I called out. He turned and accepted my non-spoken apology by offering his hug. I could feel the slight softening through the stiffened back. He was returning his non-spoken “thank you”.

It has been almost 4 years since he moved out. Ironically the few miles of distance might as well be a half-world of separation between us. I can count how many times he has been back. He was no more typical son than I am any typical mother, and yet the maternal instinct inside would occasionally surface to haunt me when colleagues or friends’ children come back for the holidays and breaks and ours chooses to stay away despite of all beckoning. I remember the initial taste of liberation when he first moved out – it was a much needed relief for all of us after all the windstorm of his existence. When he finally moved to a 12-month leased apartment, our last remnant of him finally dwindled to Christmas, New years and maybe Easter. Even that, they are always limited to over-nighter visits.

How long does it take to forget 18 years of damage? Not long enough. The side effect of any absence is nostalgia – bitter sweet, subtle yet persistent remembrance of a past disguised in a veil that softens even the worst tormenting ghost. All that screaming, fighting and tears seem to have subsided to the background, and the buried glimpse of joy starts twinkling and teasing me in the form of the 2-year-old: content, curious and bright. Our most hopeful future of him ironically may well be my worst fear that he could be gone, forever. Pain does not feel good, but the absence of pain is worse. After all, can a mother ever stop her beating heart for her child? Even when that beating sometimes breaks her heart in pieces, it at least serves as the evidence of her love. For a mother, a painful existence is better than a faint memory.

And let’s not forget the past regret so haunting that she would trade anything for a do-over. If he’d come back to stay for yet a little while before he leaves, mayhap I could finally redeem myself from all this guilt? Unlike me, he has forgiven and forgotten and all ready to take on a brave new world. As much as I realize his lack of attachment is part of him, it hurts no less to see this fledgling so eager to fly away without even a second of hesitation while I look on with all the fear for the evil ahead of him. Awkward and ill-equipped, he is, after all, invincible in his mind only. Let-go is only bearable when it is not completely literal or devoid of prosperity. For us, it is both. I wonder if these burning tears are more for the physical alienation or the invisible one. Would I hurt less if I were sure he’d hurt a little bit from leaving me? Above all, is there ever a happy ending for these two extreme opposites: the unattached for the clinging, sensible for the sensitive and the forgetful for the nostalgic?

Pick me, Pick me!

7pm of Monday; the house was quiet and empty. D was still in the office, waiting for Luke to finish the orchestra rehearsal. My dinner done, lunch packed and kitchen all cleaned up, I was ready to resign for the day when the call came. The caller ID showed college son's number. I answered quickly out of a built-in habit, as instinctively as taking the air in and out without prompting. He rarely calls, and when he does, it is business. I prayed that it is one of those non-critical business (“can I buy a calculator”, “where is Dad” kind). The voice from the other end sounded muffled, and empty. My phone is bad. He said. That was easy, I thought, and quickly told him I would look for an old one to replace it. His response was mindless and hesitant. For someone who can't read people at all, he was a sad open book, easy to read. Something was wrong. My heart sank. “Everything ok?” Another quiet and evasive answer: It's nothing. Don't worry. I pressed on further and without much effort, the truth came. He just found out his roommates had sought for next year's apartment together, and he was not included. They lied to me. He added in a vacant tone, while a heart full – it was sorrow, rejection, a sense of failure.

What does any mother say or do in time like this? I wondered. I wished I had my mother then and there. She’d make everything ok, even my broken-hearted child less heart breaking – at least for me. But there were just he and I, but a few miles apart from each other, communing one of life’s saddest misery impossible to escape. They didn’t pick me. They don’t want me. For a brief second, I almost forgot time and space. I thought I was standing at that old kitchen, looking out of the big pane of window, and there my 5-year-old on the backyard screaming for a friend who was running away from him. It was déjà vu. I had been there, too many times. 

 

Are we built to forget when it comes to pain? It took only three and half years of his absence to bury 18 years of haunted nightmare. How willing I am to be deceived, even to believe that everything was fine, that my unwanted child was finally well, accepted by this world. But there he was again, at the other end of the phone line, much older but none the less lost and broken. If I were to go back to that wretched world, I thought to myself, I wish we were still at that old house and he was that helpless 5-year-old and I the mother lecturing him on how to play while I wiped away his tears. For some illogical reason, I’d freeze time, all suffering included, just to be a hopeful mother for her helpless child forever.

But the reality was a 15 minutes of pep talk over the phone to a son all grown in statue, a man exactly, who knows too much of rejection and too little of remediation. “I don’t know how to be with my friends” was his final admission. And they with you. I added silently. With faults not of his own, he is an equal impossibility to them. “My friends”, he has always called them this way, but little does he know what it means. 3 years ago, when they moved out of the dorm and invited him to share the apartment, it was a miracle of its own and yet these friends never came or called the house during the break or holidays. My head span in a whirlwind for wisdom or advice, all the while wondering if it were a lie – a lie for both of us to go back to that kitchen where future was a disguised dream. I was grateful too that he was at the other end of phone line or he might have seen through my hopeful words from my eyes that were almost at the brink of tears. My lie went on a few minutes more, and then there was no more to say.

And yet, too much left to say…. They would never pick you if they were given a choice; not for their new apartment, parties or anything. Could I blame them? In the game of life, would this world ever choose a player incapable to play by the rules? Would I even? The proper answer would go like this: Son, this world is not made for someone like you, but if I were to choose all over again for a game prepared for heaven, it would still be you. But the real answer is, knowing what I know, 22 years of toil and tears, I would not have picked him either. 

 

I thought of another mystery of life, another game in which I myself was among the choices - someone had picked me, knowing what He knew: poor in both potentials and performance. I couldn’t understand why or how. In fact, I would not even pick myself. Haven’t I doubted all my life if indeed I were chosen at all? In the grand scheme of life, any game under the sky lasts but a blink of eye. Still, it is a cruel game where the crowd wouldn’t cheer, players wouldn’t play fair, and the referees might not even make the right call. The most frustrating thing, above all, is that the end result is indefinitely undermined. As a fallen creature who is built for instant gratification, can I ever be content for just being picked in another game unseen? Could it be possible that my son, the last one picked, was selected first-handed for me? Maybe the unbearable waiting turns out to be a blessing – that it does not end here and the losers, or the never-picked, might just be the winners after all.

Kitchen Nightmare

Almost 2 months passed since the cooking party with M. No phone calls, email, text messages– the finality of an irreconcilable damage from the last encounter is officially in. I have done it, again, this time more drastic than ever.

Truth be told, it lasted longer than I had expected – 6 months to date - when all the elements for a healthy relationship were missing from the very beginning. In addition to the age difference (a good 2 decades), they were go-getters, fun loving and most importantly the idealistic parents that do all the right things. So how would this ever start? I would like to blame D for instigating the whole thing when he came home one October night with the invite: M, the Romanian professor in his department, had invited us to their football party. Feeling socialable and impulsive, I concurred on the motion, making me an equal guilty party in this whole crime. We went and had a surprisingly fun time at their small apartment right down the street from us.

So the party continued on: D’s birthday, Math Department Christmas party, followed by New Year’s eve. Our new-found friendship erupted in a whirlwind of frenzy. From our kitchen to their 2-bedroom apartment, we had shared many fun time eating and yes drinking together. The free-spirited, exciting M may be bossy, but she is also straight-forward with a big heart for both boys. Besides food and wine, we even exchanged tears and fears for our children.

It had been some time since I started this new page of my life, working full time with little room or energy left for anything else. “Relationship” would definitely fall on the bottom list of priorities for this social inept runaway. I have had hard time keeping the very few left, letting alone embarking on the new ones. Somehow, this one was an exception, or I thought.

The catastrophe started with a Friday grocery shopping – we went all over town for the ingredients we needed for the night’s cooking lesson. She had requested for some of my signature dishes. We invited Helen, Luke’s piano teacher, making it an international fair altogether (a Romanian, a Russian and an Asian). 6pm at my kitchen that same day, we started cooking up a storm, turning the kitchen upside down. The whole house smelled mighty festive with all that ginger, garlic and onion. The domineering Romanian and equally headstrong Taiwanese in the same kitchen made the whole affair at times almost comical as we collided on and off –in good humor still. The pattern went on like this – Romanian directed what to do (or not to do) while the Taiwanese objected and carried on. It wasn’t the first time we cooked together, so I had had plenty experience of her motherly imposition. It was after all my kitchen and my dishes, and I was within my right to stand my ground. 6 months into our relationship, I have learned enough that cultural difference plays only partially in my friend’s personality – 20 years of my junior, she quite often takes the senior role, scolding and correcting me whenever she saw fit.

At 7pm, Helen called to back out the party – she was having one of those mother-daughter drama back home. We managed to talk her into coming. After she arrived, we generously offered our listening ear and wise but less wanted counseling – that’s what girlfriends do for each other. While we sat about the kitchen island and engaged in this rescue mission, my eyes surveyed the mess of the kitchen and my hands started another much needed rescue, cleaning and putting things back to order. M, who clearly considered it bad manners, scolded me for the 2^nd time of the night. Decades of habits die hard, I couldn’t sit tight with the dishes piling up in the sink and mess scattering all over the counter. I am after all my mother’s daughter; her kitchen is miraculously clean as the last dish finishes. I sneaked backed in putting away another dish while listening to M’s sound advice of parenting. This time, my friend stopped me good. She caught me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes, rendering the ultimatum: “STOP, or we are leaving!”

The rebellious, prideful fallen creature we are! How hopeless and wretched we are! If there is anything this particular sinner is cursed with, among her many other faults, it would be the public humiliation of her crime. She could not bear being caught and, worst of all, told what she cannot do, because that’s exactly what she’d do. The alleged did stop, only to offer one of those “I am sorry, BUT”, not-so-sorry apology. In the courtroom, I delivered my defense: I had this hang-up (“just like you have your own”), AND I WAS listening despite of all, etc., etc.. Passionate and firm, the close argument was done and the defense rest. And just like that, the air that still smelled aromatic with spices and heat was suddenly chilled and dead – but not nearly as the judge’s eyes. The court adjourned - only without a fair trial. In less than half an hour, my party left. I was standing in the aftermath of a kitchen nightmare, abandoned and utterly unforgiven.

6 months of “bonding” – eating, drinking, laughing and sharing – and it took but 2 minutes to end it all. For someone with a track record of social disaster, I still marvel how quick and final this one went. Not a single word has returned, neither was there any effort for reconciliation. A repeated drop-out in relationship, I was expecting another one of those grieving cycle from denial, anger to the final self-tormenting lamentation. Strangely, it went straight to the acceptance without much sweat this time. Life has resumed its monotonous cycle with no plans, parties or fun outings. Week days or weekends, my calendar remains wide open and the house quiet and still. Cinderella is back to her rags from her before-midnight ball and somehow she feels nothing except for the shameful revelation of relief. I have to ask: Have I grown so accustomed to failures that I finally cease to care or feel? Maybe so, but the real truth is: I have not been honest all along. For months, I entertained the idea of being this fun-loving party animal, eating, drinking, going along with my new friend. While it lasted, it was exhausting. How does a self-absorbing scrooge morph into a socialite? She does not. In time the true color shows and she is ready to go home. In another courtroom for another trial, I am in fact guilty of many charges, the chief most being an imposter that forgets many ancient old principles: a trickling steam will outlast a stormy downpour; an early sun never yields a fair day, but most of all a kitchen with 2 mistresses always ends up a disaster.