My mom is truly an adventurer, even at 66 years old. It's nothing new to me and my brothers, because every once in a while she likes to stir us with her "jaw-gagging" new projects and investments. We often worry her activities are no longer suitable for someone her age and may cause her physical or financial difficulties. But I've always quietly adored her constant creative spirit and strength; I seriously think she's one of a kind and controversial.
Nevertheless, sometimes I still have a love-hate relationship with her, especially when she starts asking too many questions about marriage and religion; that irritates me big time, as I personally think it's not her role anymore to try to convince me that what's important for her has to have the same position on my list of priorities.
It still bugs me when she tries to take over a big decision for us, or expects us to behave in certain manner according to her old-fashioned ways.
I don't want to just sit there pretending to agree or let her ramble on with it going in one ear and out the other. I totally disagree that giving up like that and doing whatever we've been told is a symbol of love and respect of our parents. Is it insolent to disagree with our mom's beliefs?
I might sound idealistic but I believe we have to embrace our differences, even though it's one of the greatest challenges for two generations in a family to blend in a perfect harmony.
Some of my friends, most of who come from a Western cultural background, can have total disconnection from their parents.
Some believe that family is just a base for growing up and we can just leave them when we're ready. It still shocks me how that relationship can be so unworkable.
I have never been a family man because of the way my family members judged my behavior as a gay kid when I was growing up. I just couldn't wait to get out of the house as soon as I could stand on my own so no one would say bad things to me or tell me what to do anymore.
Selfishly, I just wanted to be free and didn't care about family values or about bothering to chip in some of my own money when the family's house needed a new roof. I assumed that when some family problem occurs, even if we don't cause it, we always have no choice except to get dragged into the problem.
In my wildest dreams, I often wonder what the concept of having kids is. Do kids even ask to be born and carry family problems they never expected? Even my forever-single gay friends are now starting to think about adopting a child when their Mr. Right just never shows up.
For what? Are children a guarantee so we have someone to take care of us during old age? Is it fair to "prepare" a life to shoulder the burden of looking after us?
And then, one day, I had one of the most heart-stopping moments in my life. My four-year-old angora cat Buckley escaped from the house and went missing for almost 24 hours. Buckley has always been an indoor cat, and needless to say I love him to death! That fur ball disappeared so quickly that night after just five minutes being left alone in the garden.
My imagination ran wild: What if he got lost, disoriented by the outside world surrounded by plantations and filthy swamps? And what is he going to have when he's hungry and thirsty?
He only eats and drinks Science Diet food and mineral water! And what if somebody snatches him and sells him?
I didn't really think Buckley would have much of a survival instinct outside that wall.
I spent a sleepless night and day, but he came back out of nowhere the next evening. I felt so happy - ecstatic - and relieved. I wanted to kiss and cuddle him straight away but I also had the "pride" to first be angry with him for making me worried. I could picture myself as an ibu-ibu from some cheap TV sinetron with full-on makeup and a bouffant hairstyle going on and on expressing some overdone anger as the camera zooms in and out.
Suddenly, I could see my mother reflected in me; it reminded me of the times I still lived under her roof and she was always waiting up for me to come home from clubbing in early morning and she got so angry. It was so annoying, but now, have I just become her toward my cat (son)?
It's funny how time changes us, and without realizing it, the day arrives and hits us with the realization we're becoming the clone of our own mother.
Gradually we start to understand the reasons behind our mom's stress, fussiness, nagging behavior, worries, anger and all the other traits we thought so uncool.
My relationship with my mom is much better now than it was in those rebellious days, partly because my own behavior has transformed from wildness to domesticated.
Maybe Buckley's escapade was just his wild exploration day out of his usual domestic life; maybe it was just the way Nature reminds me that all sorts of complicated emotions between a mother and a child can simply branch out from a single root of unconditional love.
Happy Mother's Day (Dec. 22).
- Diaz
