Say My Name – Oksana Grigorieva
The chilling song above stirs me. Abruptly , i feel flooded with emotions and i feel compelled to blog. Why am i flooded with emotions?? Because of many things sir. Many things.
I awoke today, after having a terrible discussion with myself about the question ” whether the chicken or egg comes first” which practically fused my brain. So when i awoke, and just as i entered the living room i knew instantly something was wrong.
I’m a light sleeper, so throughout my siesta just, i had took in snippets of noises -But they were comprehensible. My collection of reasonings justified the mellow hellos, and the occasional cracks of laughter by my father who was watching The Price is Right.
However, what i was awoken too was different… It was as chilling as this song. I can still remember the scene, my father holding a phone, the television off, my mother walking past me with that always seemingly glowering yet empathetic look,my father speaking with such seriousness that that look on his face gave away that he was about to blow.
I didn’t really know what happened, but i caught some vague idea that it had happened once before. After the call, my father slammed the phone, and like he always was, as if he didn’t know me at all, walk past me like a heartless stranger – When he becomes angry, he forgets his role as a father.
He becomes a man. More like a beast. He just gets so overwhelmed by this source of anger that he seemingly morphs into someone i don’t know at all. And that beast, has been in my life for so long, that the fatherly figure that he sometimes project, will not be better remembered than the former. To this day, his anger haunts me.
Its like no other. Words like a cutting tip of a sword, eyes that burnt into you, and the body language that seem to recognise no past of what we have – I guess thats why we live behind closed doors. I drew more comfort with being on my own, than being with him.
But back to the story first. Yes its a story , how can it not be? So he stormed into the room of which my sister was in, and slammed the door shut. And for that he abruptly just let loose. The madness in that room, i wish not to imagine, but i knew that it was simply heart breaking. And my sister’s heart broke . I guess it did, because she burst into tears in their flurry of discussion.
I don’t know what was the discussion about but there were screamings, shoutings and sometimes mumbling from my sister. But by now, the house is quiet again, because i type quite slow as well.
I don’t know what has happen to my sister. I think you know by now how our relationship is like. Its the same for both my parents.
I have principles and reasons to believe that such a relationship is right, based on circumstances. I don’t know. We are two similar humans, but in two different worlds. We seem to clash everytime, not in ideas but in character. I just have this deep seded hatred ( i forgot where it came from), and i just abhore her.
I have had nightmares of her and awoke me in either great fear or great abhorence for her existence.
But hearing her cry made my heart ached just now. Mother once asked me in a sushi restaurant whether i will help my sister when shes in trouble. The look on her face when she asked was both cautious and revolting. Revolting because, she asked such a question to make me feel as if we were on the same boat – That her family situation was similar to mine ( ad hominem). But i knew it was different. Talking about her family was of great interest to mine, because somewhere along the line, close to Granny’s death, something happened ( or maybe something didn’t happen) that made that family fall apart.
I have no connections whatsoever with my cousins for several years now. And the only way i get information about them is from an occasional slip from my Aunt Joanne, who heartily always try to tell me more about them but what i get are always vague ideas. Through these years, my aunt has become a messenger, and today though we’ve not contacted for months, a person i kind of look forward to having to visit – Because now, i dearly do miss them. Why now? I will explain next time.
My answer to mother’s question nevertheless let her scorn. But like any other deeply conservative mothers who seem to only have two expressions ( happy or sad) , she quickly absorbed it and gave an almost serenely beautiful look ( if not for me feeling disgusted about what she asked). I think when that scorn left her , she was puzzled. Puzzled by how her son could be like this.
But i think today i knew why i shook my head instantly. Because like her, I was never there for my sister. At first, when i thought about it, i realised i regretted such an answer. For it was not of reasons, but simply the notion of revenge – That since she was never there for me, i wouldn’t for her. But now i realised that i gave that answer because i understood that the person that should be there for her were our parents, and not me.
I can never come in if my parents never gave in. The fact that my parents always felt themselves right, on even grounds that were always apparently irrational, gave me no room to pitch in – For they create as much problems as they gave to my sis. Of what circumstance and of which reason can i have to help her? I have this inkling that if i seek to heal that broken heart with my words, it would never heal as well or completely as it would if my parents were to come forth and seek forgiveness.
You may think i’m damning my parents, but i guess 18 years on, if im still thinking this way, than probably i’m more right than wrong. Its no longer a 50 to 50 issue. It has become to the point when i’m willing to accept the reasons i’ve had for so long, and reject other reasons which never came to light.
I know i can never be there for my sister. As circumstance stand, i think my mother had unknowingly brought us further apart from each other. Its truth that somehow they are more biased with me, for perhaps some old traditional reasons, and somehow there’s always a sense that my sister has always tried to please my parents since her ” many events” . Through my life, i’ve witnessed how the clashes between my sister and my parents have been disturbingly haunting.
For an outsider if that was it, I’m wondering how my sister subsisted alone. And perhaps my parents don’t know but for an outsider i seem to have always been ” lucky” to see signs of how my sister cope. And i think at all those points, God asked me whether i wish to help her, and i chose not to.
I look at her and i saw only myself. Disgruntled with our parents, dissatisfied and yet at each moment trying to prove our parents more capable of their love. My sister, through the past few months, look more heroic than she ever look to me ever. Silently, i admire her. I admire her bravery for going out with them, i admire her courage for sitting with them during dinner – Yes i’ve not done that part of a son’s duty for years. Because every time if we gave in to them, somewhere along the line, father would crossed, and his anger which always came out from the little things, would totally suck us in into a struggle between trying to continue or leave in flight.
Mother seems to rejoice in pleasure whenever Father starts throwing his tantrum.
She says its his thing. In some ways it is, but for his thing, she never realised that our thing would be for him to stop. I think at many points in my life, mother could have intervene and made my teenage hood better ( dont worry i had a fantastic childhood) . But many times that could have given her the glory of making her a better mother, she simply just stood aside to watch. And the times she did intervene, were only times when she seem to cajole us to believe this was right. Most of the times though, she simply used money to conceal however we feel.
I told mother once, a family made up of a straw of lies, will never stand the test of time. Today i’m more blunt to you, to say that what i truly meant with the former statement was that straw of lies can never stand in the first place.
What was there, was merely illusory.
The love for my family was never there. Years before, i tried to believe mother was right. And in some ways, i prayed that she was. Yet today i saw her more wrong than right.
Ask me whether i can turn back time to change things and i will tell you if you forced me, i would. In the most pragmatic grounds i take, such things should never exist – It gives human the pleasure that it would be possible to undo their deeds – But what is done is done and by reasons alone, you should just have been effin smarter and thought more not to have made those moves.
But if given such an oppurtunity, forced, i would turn back time.
I would go back to the past when me and my sister wasn’t born yet, when my parents first met.
At that very meeting, i will ask them, ” Do you know what love is?”
And if they nod their heads sheepishly like young lovers, i would tell them, ” No, you don’t. Now break it up.”
If they did that, than today won’t come.
And today wasn’t as great as yesterday.
And today only came because someone was fond of tomorrow.
And that is how i live.
How i will live.
And if my sister is able to live through this night, will probably live as as well.
…
The wolf came to the first pig’s house which was build with straws. He took a deep breath and made a HUFF and a PUFF. The first pig’s house blew apart, and the pig shivered in the thought that he would be the meal of the wolf.
But the wolf seemed to not want to eat the pig. He stood there watching the straws fly into the wind. And then he looked at the shivering pig in a fetal position.
Walking forwards, the wolf whispered into the pig’s ears ” You are not worth to eat.”
As the wolf walked away, the pig screamed and ask for the wolf his reasons.
The wolf turned back and said, ” If you didn’t even know how to build a house, eating you would give disgrace to my herd.
We hunt to savour the freshest meat. And the freshest meat comes from those who run and give themselves a decent chance to live. Yet when you build that house in straws little pig, you’ve already condemned yourself to death.
What’s worthy of eating such a thing like you whom is neither dead nor alive? ”
And the wolf paused to watch the pig squirm.
“Only disgrace, stranger. Only disgrace.”
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