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Even five years ago if someone
told me that I was going to develop a peaceful relationship with my mom I would
not have believed him. All my life I had a painful relationship with her and
that made me sad.
My mom and I had a
rocky start. She was very excited to become a mother because I was the firstborn
and a boy but she was brokenhearted when she found out that I was allergic to
her milk. [Freud would have smiled if he heard that]. As a newborn I got so sick
drinking her milk that the doctor suggested that she fed me bottle milk rather
than her breast milk. There were times I was jaundiced and had so much vomiting
and diarrhea that the family was worried I might die. Luckily I recovered and
survived but my mom became an overprotective mom.
My mom was also
worried to find out that I had a congenital abnormality of my left ear as part
of the lobe was missing. She used to cover my head with a beautiful scarf so
that other relatives and friends did not see my deformity. She was so upset to
see my deformed ear that when I was three she took me to a surgeon and had an
operation done. She was so impressed by the specialist that she wanted her son
to become a doctor and a specialist.
My first memory of my
mom is interacting with her in a big house in Kohat. I wanted to go out in the
street to play with other children but she did not let me out, as she was afraid
of pathans, the tribal people, who carried guns. She was afraid they would
kidnap me. I still remember the metal bar on the front door. It was so high I
could not touch it. I used to stand close to the door and listen to children
playing in the street. That was the time I felt like a bird in the cage.
For some mysterious
reason I never developed a loving bond with my mom, the way I had with my dad,
sister, grandmother and aunts and uncles.
All her life my mom
loved me but loved me too much and I felt suffocated by her love. It was very
different than my dad’s love. He loved me for who I was and encouraged me to
follow my dreams. My mom’s love was controlling and suffocating while my dad’s
love was exciting and liberating.
My mom had a dream for
me but I felt inhibited by her dream. I could never own her dream. I knew she
meant well but it did not stop the emotional pain I felt. Finally the pain got
so unbearable that I left my home and homeland and moved to Iran and then to
Canada. Over the years I went back to see her in Pakistan off and on not out of
love rather out of obligation and duty.
So when she died a few
years ago I felt relieved rather than sad. It was a relief because my last
painful relationship of life was over and I could lead a happy, healthy peaceful
lifestyle in all aspects of my life.
But after her death
the intensity of pain started to subside. I was no longer dreading her phone
call in which she would challenge me that how I could be happy when she was
miserable and insist that either I move back to Pakistan to live with her or
bring her to Canada so that she could live with me and for me both options were
not acceptable. I used to be polite and courteous and try to avoid the conflict
and be evasive.
With passage of time
my attitude changed and I started to realize that she suffered all her life
because she was a woman who was born in a conservative, traditional and
religious environment and was not allowed to have her own dream. After grade
eight when she wanted to go to high school she was told by her father and
brother that all she need to learn was how to cook and clean and wash so that
she could be a good wife and mother. She did not need higher education. Rather
than an asset it could be a curse because it would be hard to get her married
off. She cried and cried but nobody listened to her. When I realized that I felt
sorry for her. I knew that she was so bright that if she had higher education
she would have become a successful lawyer, doctor or professor. In many ways she
was smarter than my dad who had a masters in mathematics. It took me some time
to realize that she had transferred her dream of higher education to her husband
and later on to her son. Such realization made it clear why I felt the pressure
of her unfulfilled dream that she projected on to me.
As time passed I
became more sympathetic towards her and all other women like her who suffered
all their lives on the altar of religion and tradition and culture. My
resentment and anger towards her started to wash away. I was amazed how my
relationship with her was changing after her death as I was getting in touch
with her sufferings.
And then one day I
started thinking of a picture she had taken when she was young. In that picture
she looked happy, beautiful and charming. I wanted to remove all her negative
and painful images from my mind and replace them with that happy and beautiful
image. I called my sister and asked her to look for that picture in her
collection. She tried her best but could not find that particular picture. I was
disappointed.
And then last year my
sister called me unexpectedly with the good news that she found the picture I
was looking for, She also told me that when that picture was taken she was very
happy because she was pregnant with me. That information was so significant that
it produced a wonderful positive change in my mind and heart and for the first
time I felt an affectionate and loving connection with her. It was the
connection I always wanted with her but was never successful. When I saw the
picture I kissed her affectionately for the first time. It was aha experience
for me. It was a wonderful breakthrough after so much pain and suffering. In the
last year I have kept that picture in my bag that I carry wherever I go and look
at it from time to time and share the story with my friends. It sounds like the
story of an adopted son who found his real mother after fifty years.
After that new loving
connection I started to appreciate that
…if she did not send me to a
good school and worry about my education I would not have become a doctor and a
psychiatrist
and
…if she did not introduce me
to pen and paper and teach me how to write I would not have become a writer. She
probably did not think in her wildest imagination that her son one day would
publish more than a dozen books in Urdu and English. She wanted me to become a
doctor and be financially successful. She used to worry that if I became a poet
I will be a struggling poet, as she believed that people do not pay to buy
dreams and poets sell dreams and that is why they are always struggling to
survive.
While I am writing
this story of my life I am remembering the time when I was a teenager and my
first short story was published in my college magazine. One evening when I came
home I saw her showing the magazine to her friend and bragging about the story
and telling her “I am so proud of him.” When she saw me overhearing it she
blushed. She used to be tough with me but now I am appreciating that under her
tough exterior she also had a soft loving interior. Unfortunately she never
shared that with me. She was more fathering and disciplinarian than my father.
Luckily my father was nurturing and more mothering than my mother.
I am so glad that I
developed a loving and peaceful relationship with her even though it was after
her death…better late than never.
Now that I look back
at my life long relationship with my mother I think the pain and sadness
associated with it was a mixed blessing. It was a curse as a son but a blessing
as a writer. If I had not experienced that pain I would not have written some
wonderful stories like Mother Earth Is Sad. It was that sadness that
transformed her into a metaphor and I started associating mother with motherland
and mother earth. Separating from her helped me appreciate the agony of all
those immigrants and refugees who are forced to say goodbye to their motherlands
for their survival and a better future. It also helped me appreciate the
significance of Mother Earth as a humanist and become aware that human history
is the evolution from religious love for Heavenly Father to a natural love to
Mother Earth. It is the Mother Earth that gives birth to us from her womb and
them welcomes us back in her arms after we die. So our relationship with Mother
Earth extends far before our physical birth and far after our physical death. I
feel so glad that finally I am developing a peaceful relationship with my mother
and Mother Earth as a son, a writer as well as a humanist. Transforming my
painful relationship to a peaceful relationship with my mother and Mother Earth
has been one of the most exciting encounters of my life.
Feb 17th, 2008
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