Forthnights

Mother: Part IV (Runaway mom!)

My life seems more like a drama series than real life. It seems I live a life as dramatic and bizarre as those soap opera you see on TV. 3 hours ago as I write this, I went to the A&W in Tmn Jaya with my mother for some lunch. Before that, we just went to make her spectacles. I left her at the table went to the counter to buy the food, 10 minutes later, I return with the food but with a missing mother. I immediately asked the staff there if they have seen where she went, but the staff where all at a blur, not noticing anything at all. So I went on a frantic search for her. I secretly hoped that I was wrong and that she just went to the toilet. But the other part of me knew that that was wishful thinking if nothing else. She left without any money, identification, or anything else for the matter in fact, just the cloths on her back. She already had a 10 minute head start so I immediately started looking for her. But I knew that she could have gone anywhere, left or right, front or back. If there is one thing about my mother I know, cashless and mentally ill she might be, but she definitely knew how to get things done if she put her head to it. I know that she must have borrowed some money from people and taken a bus away, to God knows where. I spent the next 2 hours going around the area from Asia Jaya to Universiti Hospital looking trying to spot her but without success.

To shed some light on the matter, I’ll have to go back to last week. I brought her up north to Sg Petani (where she had been living for all these years) to do some things with her bank account. It was a trip planned a month ahead and the 2 of us traveled by train and arrived there in the morning. We were sitting down having breakfast when she dropped her first bomb on us. She told me that since she’s all the way back here, she has decided that she doesn’t want to go back to the home anymore. She is already well and she wants to come back to work and live her own life. She said she cant stand the place anymore and that she wants to be respected and to live her own life the way she wants to without all the rules and regulations of the home. I felt cheated, used and manipulated because she deliberately waited until I brought her up north before she said any of these things. I never thought that my own mother would have been so manipulative of me. I tried persuading her, rationalizing with her, scolding her, bargaining with her, threatening her and whatever I could say too make her come back with me and not cheat me like that but she refused. At one point she just walked out on me and totally ignored my calls. She even attempted to run away while I was on the phone with my back turned. But I wasn’t about to give up, and after a few hours of talking, I persuaded her to at least come to KL and talk to my brother too, and if by the weekend she was still stubborn, we’d let her go.

When we finally got back to KL, my brother and I talked her into going back to the home and she went back reluctantly. But ever since that day, she has been more restless than ever, bothering the caretakers in the home, saying that she is already well and needs to go back to her place up north. When I left her to go and buy lunch, I never thought that she’d take the chance to run away, with absolutely nothing with her. Apparently, her freedom meant more to her than anything else including money, care, comfort or even the attention of her two children.


So now I’m left with a missing mother. Runaway mom. My father is at the final stages of what will be his third failed marriage, coming to stay with us in Wangsa Maju, bachelor once again. Things take one bizarre turn after another. I have no idea how all this is going to turn out, and how this drama of a life that I am living will work out if they really do. A part of me is so anger at my mother for what she did. Running away. I don’t know if I will be able to find it in my heart to forgive her. I feel sad that she would want to do that and not be with her children, instead choosing her own freedom. I feel cheated and not appreciated after all the pains that we went through to get her well and healthy again like she is now, until she is able to rebel and run away! A part of me wants to just disclaim her and deny ever having such a mother. But another part of me just cannot do it and still love her deeply as my mother. A part of is so full of hatred for the things that she has done. I don’t know what to do anymore or how to make things right. A part of me just wants to be selfish and not care anymore, and it would be easy to do, just living like I have no mother, after all, I have been without her for the past 10 years of my life. I am torn between emotions. I feel lost and helpless in this situation. Its bad enough not knowing how to feel, let alone knowing what to do.

posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 4:22 pm Comments: 0