Facebook Made Me Tear

Something made me tear up during the quietness of lunch break today.  I was tagging some old photos in Facebook.  Most of them are of my parents.  And my Mom commented on two of them.  


the first picture
(1)
taken when i was 3 years old


the second picture
(2)

taken when i was about a year old in my hometown


It has taken a long while before my Mom and I have really improved our mother-daughter relationship.  Mostly, our communication gap has been mainly because of how she often comes off quite unapproachable.  Stern.  Uptight.  Over the years I have realized that there were reasons why she had to stay tough and pull herself together the way she did.  It's one of the things women do when they're trying to keep themselves from falling apart.

Mom and I never had a lot of mother-daughter conversations.  We don't know how.  It's always awkward to talk heart to heart when we come face to face.  It's always easier to say the words when we write them down or email them.  Or post a Facebook comment such as this.  

The thought of mortality starts to nag when I see my Mom growing a little bit more older everyday.  I begin to notice how she is starting to look a lot like my grandmother.  I'm also beginning to realize how some of my habits resemble hers: like the need for prolonged moments of quiet and the need for order.

She never really talked about her childhood much.  The comment she posted is one of the few memories she ever told me about her childhood.  She probably only told me two.  The other one was about a little plastic butterfly bag which we found tucked in some of my grandmother's things.  It was old and tattered but she told me that it was her favorite bag when she was small and used to bring it to church all the time.  I took the tattered bag and put it one of the boxes where I kept my grandmother's things.

A treasure box of memories.  Melancholy.  Wistful.  Gives off that kind of ache only humans feel when they love.  That paradoxical emotion that can never completely make sense until you understand what love really is.  

Michelangelo's Pieta

Comments

  1. now, this made me tear. tomorrow is my mom's birthday and i spoke to her early this evening. i don't know what i'd do without her, without our conversations about everything under the sun. sometimes, even if it doesn't make sense because she keeps repeating herself, i wouldn't have it any other way. i do know that even though you don't do the mother-daughter conversation is that she loves you and always will. however, she will never be my facebook friend! ha ha too much stuff goes on there :) or maybe she might be the one who tells everyone about my younger days ...

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  2. hahah! yeah i think she loves me naman. i just wish we had the mother-daughter thing going on. although in one of her emails to me she said that we have our "own way" of communicating. and i suppose she's right. it's just a matter of accepting it as it is. :) happy birthday to your mom reni!

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  3. Mother-daughter relationships are some of the strangest, most fascinating relationships I know. As a mother and (new!)grandmother I have vowed to break the chain of action-reaction which for years has bound my own mother and I.

    Nice to read you here Kathy, I've missed you on SheWrites.

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  4. Congratulations to being a new grandmother Cathy! I know, I haven't been able to go on SheWrites since the start of this year. :( Will try to get back soon.

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