by Abel Pichardo

Created on: January 12, 2008   Last Updated: November 28, 2010

I hear the squeak of the front door as my brother enters the house. Out of the corner of my eye I see the Target red he sports proudly blur past me as he heads towards the kitchen to get something to eat. Everyday, I wonder whether I should be the first to ask him how his day was, and everyday my mother beats me to it. He sits next to my parents on the couch as they watch television after finding nothing on the stove. My father's mind is focused on the set but my mother is active in conversation with my little brother. He talks about the many customers he dealt with that day and the workload his bosses left for him and his coworkers. Their interaction is almost picturesque, a loving mother and a son who couldn't be happier.

I can't help but to feel happy for them. It is the most overwhelming of my mixed emotions. After all, I love them both so much. It is only after I focus my attention back to myself that I begin to think that it would have been great if my relationship with that same woman were anything close to that she shares with my brother. This is always followed by flashbacks of holes being punched into walls and constant yelling. Her frustration and my despair, her inability to communicate and my choice not to take the first step; the irony of the situation is that if I had chosen to be the better person like I was trying to prove, all of that would have been easily avoided.

It wasn't that I didn't know that she wanted what was best for me or that I ever doubted her love. I never for a second felt like I was not loved or cared for. I just never knew I was dealing with such a fragile woman. It never occurred to me that she couldn't take communicate because in a traditional catholic household in Mexico City, feelings were not discussed. Men worked and made money, women were in charge of raising the children, making sure dinner was done on time, and children behaved and did not ask stupid questions. I never stopped to think that she did not realize that there were different schools of parenting and that children were not doomed to repeat their parent's mistakes. No one could shake her of her conviction that unless I was constantly kept in the house I would be a dad at the age of seventeen.

Sometimes I sit and wonder about what could've been had I had the restraint to analyze and think things through as I do now because it's easy to say I would have done things differently. However, considering that anything I could've done would've changed something in the present, I can only take satisfaction in knowing that my mother learned from her mistakes with me. That because of our failed relationship, she is able to have a meaningful one with my little brother, a younger brother that would've never been able to handle the emotional and psychological hell we put each other through.

It is impossible to deal with something you don't understand and it surprises me how often parents forget they have the upper hand. I don't understand why they forget that they were teenagers once. I can only hope this is a small reminder.

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