My mother used to tell me that I liked my father more when I was a kid. When my father started working overseas, things changed. I started pulling away eventually, they blamed it on the distance, I can't fault them for that because it's easier this way. Reality is always much more complicated and you guessed it, shameful. I still remember it vividly, I was playing with my brother while the tv was playing in front of us. A commercial suddenly played, it was so… inconsequential, it really was. It had this premise where a female student was able to graduate because of her hardworking father. It shouldn't have affected me the way it did, until my mother spoke. "That's what fathers do, work hard for one child then ignore the other, even if the other one has more needs." I stopped wiggling the doll in front of my brother's face, yet he continued to laugh. I didn't understand anything. My mother wasn't talking to me directly but I felt like an arrow impaled me inside my chest. I dropped the doll and sat stiffly for the next few minutes. I still didn't understand. At this point all I could do was think about why I suddenly felt the need to rip my face off and hide it somewhere so my mother didn't have to suffer staring at it.
After a few months, my father arrived home. I could see he missed me, I was his little girl after all. But unfortunately for him, I had spent the last few months thinking about my mother's words and what it all meant, until finally, I understood. I was his favorite and he did a horrible job hiding it. All of a sudden, having him near me felt disgusting. Seeing proof of how he favored me filled me with both shame and rage, to this day I still wonder how I was able to stuff all those feelings inside me at such a young age. According to him, my brother wasn't "normal" therefore what was the point in putting money and energy into him? Knowing all this made me feel sick whenever I saw him smile at me. So I revoked my ability to accept his love.
At the time I thought I was making my mother proud. I thought I had to pick a side and of course, of course I chose her. Until one day she set me aside and asked me why I was acting strange, why did it seem like I was angry with my father, why was I so aloof? That's when I realized that I was a stupid child. That moment in front of the tv meant nothing. She probably didn't even know I was listening. I wanted to laugh, but all I did was stare at her blankly and say "I don't know." All the bitterness I kept inside of me was all for nothing, and yet, even though I had no use for it anymore, it still stayed. Like an incurable disease that eats away at your life and everyone around you.
Me and my father don't have a close relationship anymore. We haven't for more than a decade now. Lately I've noticed how he always leaves a space between us when we're standing side-by-side, a space he used to desperately try to get rid of. The guilt threatens to eat me alive each second I think too much of how cruel and cold and aloof I can be, but no matter what I do I can't seem to undo the self-brainwash I've done to myself back then. I only have myself to blame. Maybe it's not a matter of brainwashing myself, maybe I really am just innately cruel. Surely, if I had enough kindness and love within me I wouldn't be having this problem.
*****
Just like any other family during the pandemic, my family and I had to make lots of adjustments. With my father's job on hold, we each had to help out one another to stay afloat. Those were hard times, and long story short, we were struggling. To add to the already stressful situation, one day my mother asked me to go upstairs to talk. That's when she confessed that she might have cancer. Ever since I was a child my mother would always say that she would die from cancer, with her dad dying from a tumor and all, she says it comes from the family and that it's inevitable. So of course, when I heard those words coming out of her mouth, to say I was devastated was an understatement. I felt my life collapsing right before my eyes. My mother looked at me with pity and said, "People told me that telling someone would help so I came to you. I couldn't tell your dad, with how stressed he is lately he might kill himself."
She said a lot of things after that, how she'll take care of matters and settle things before her condition gets worse. I don't remember much, I was in a daze. All i could think about was how I was going to have to take care of everything after she was gone. My dad is useless when it comes to paperworks, does that mean I would have to know everything? How was I going to take care of my brother? I knew I couldn't trust my dad to help, so what was I supposed to do?
I didn't sleep that night. I woke up the next day and my mother was already at work. I spent the rest of the morning helping my father around the house. Except, I did it all while crying, I couldn't stop crying. Every second I just kept thinking about the things I'm supposed to do and how I don't know how to do any of them. I cried right in plain sight while doing my chores and my father did nothing but walk past me each and everytime. At some point I was wondering if I was really doing that much of a good job hiding my tears. But my eyes were swollen and I gasped for air every few minutes when my sobs were getting too much to bear. I think he just didn't know what to do. I wanted to laugh at how he couldn't even ask me why I was crying.
What made me cry the most during those moments was the idea that I was going to have to be the one to tell my brother that mom was gone. Would he even believe me? Would he even understand the concept of death? What if he continues to ask for our mother and I can't do anything but endure his tantrums? I wanted to kill myself. I knew I couldn't do any of these things, I wouldn't be able to take it. I would be all alone to take care of things with nothing but my grief to accompany me.
Funny enough, the day after that, my mother told me that everything was just a scare. Turns out she mistook the short-term effect of the covid vaccine as symptoms of cancer. We laughed. Everything returned to normal after that, I wish it included me. After that incident I would have moments of depression where all I could do was cry and worry about what I would do when my mother dies. I always hid these moments in shame, the last thing I wanted was for my mother to blame herself.
******
******
Whenever I think of the future, a vivid idea always comes to mind. I think of myself sitting inside a barren apartment in complete silence. That vision of the future always contains my brother, but it does nothing to dissipate the loneliness. Sometimes I wonder, would my brother ever be capable of caring about me if I needed help in the future? People say your siblings are your biggest support when it comes to grieving a parent, would he cry with me during those moments or would he stare at me blankly the same way he does all the time when he sees me upset? What if I can't take the grief anymore, what would happen then? What if one day I decided to give up, maybe hang from the ceiling or take one too many pills, would he even realize I'm gone by then? How long would it take until the neighbors start to think something strange is going on? What if nobody decides to check in on us at all? Would my brother suffocate on the smell of my own corpse?
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm not suicidal at all, in fact, I'm afraid of death. I would never do something so cruel to my brother and I'm happy with who he is. I'm ashamed. I'm horrified that I'm able to say these things about anyone much less about my family of all people. I know how this sounds. I am as pathetic as I am wretched. If my biggest fear is the future I envisioned, my biggest wish is for me to die before any of it even begins to happen.