feelmysoul

hear my random thoughts.... they are the echoes of my screaming soul...

Monday, October 17, 2011

Hard as a Diamond

My morning started with a note that my sister tagged me on facebook. Her note tells so much about her inner thoughts and feelings that I have not thought she felt all those years. There's so much cleverness in her note that made me feel ashamed of two things. First,how her writing style is definitely much much better and way too creative than how I do mine. Second, how I have been so apathetic and insensitive to assume that all of my siblings feel indifferently and not much affected on our parents' separation like I do.

Loaded with guilt, I felt the urge to ponder on the things she wrote and maybe write something that would lift her spirit up and made her feel that she was never alone in the fight.

There are parts in her note that I can easily relate to, like when she said how a great joker our father is. The only difference is the joke that we've been told and how quickly we learned to laugh at it. Because my sister was barely 12 years old when my father cracked the joke on her, and she just learned that it's just a joke and she's having a hard time trying to laugh at it just now.

While I on the other hand, was 15 (my sister was only 7 then) when my father played his prank on me, and I have learned too soon about it, allowing me to learn how to laugh at it at a relatively quicker phase.

Like my sister did, I took everything seriously at first too, not really understanding when exactly the joke has been cracked and when I should start laughing. All I know is that his joke left me lying in a hospital bed for many days, badly beaten and bruised. All I understand is that I want to avoid talking and seeing anyone, trying to find answers and comfort in the darkness of my own thoughts.

When did I learn that everything was just a big joke?

When my father did not even care to visit me in the hospital and see if I was taking his joke just fine.

When he still managed to get moving and did things for promotion and career advancement. When I didn't see that he's sorry and ashamed of what he did in front of his friends. When he pretended that he's worthy of everyone's respect.

When I want to vomit whenever my friends address him as "sir" and spoke to him as if they were almost speaking to a pope.

When he committed the same sin and mistakes time and again effortless. When he treated mom, me and my siblings as imbecile fools who would never learn the fact that he shouldn't be understood and forgiven easily as if we are scared to lose him on our side.

I am really not in any position to determine which of the joke my father did to us was the hardest to laugh at. I cannot honestly say which of us is strongest, for all of us found different means to cope up with it. In fact, I didn't understand my father's joke on my own and I was only good at crying and succumbing to fear many times and the thought of taking my own life, had crossed my mind more than once that time.

Because the long rest I had on the hospital might have had me feeling better, but my worrying mind remained restless for a few more days.

Because the doctors might have been good in treating my swollen ribs, but he did not do anything to ease the heavy burdens in my heart.

Because the nurses might have done their jobs well treating my bruises, but there's nothing that they can do to remove the scars in my soul.

Because my mom and aunts might have lied to everyone the best they could so that my father won't have any criminal records physically abusing me, and might have told the hospital staff that I was injured because I accidentally slipped and hit my head on our bathroom floor. But it made a record on my life that nobody can deny or lie about.

I thought things were at its worst then and there's no way that I could make my life better. It was my mother's younger brother who saw me groping in the dark and led me out to see the light . It was him who sincerely but unconsciously took the resposibility in his shoulders to do the things that my father should be doing for me. It was him who decoded my father's joke for my confused mind to understand.

My uncle told me many things that night. Some of it were still unfathomable then to my immature thoughts, but then trying to appreciate his efforts, I lended him not just my ears to listen, but my heart to obey and follow his advices.

It was my heart who translated everything he said in a way much easier for me to understand. And the "translated" version goes like this: "You're still young...this is just the beginning of every kind of joke, both funny and rude, that life will throw on you. As you get older, you will find yourself facing problems similar to this...or problems that are much much harder..problems that not even I could understand. If you would refuse to face this now, how would you face the other jokes that will come your way? You may take it seriously, but don't be too hard on yourself. Face it now and welcome the opportunity to grow and get stronger. You're wise and clever. You can do better than cry here and sulk. Ride on the joke... and learn how to turn the joke on life, or in this case on your father." Whatever courage I have now, I owe it to my uncle. And I'll do whatever I can to return the favor, endlessly. In fact I have decided to ask him to walk me down the aisle when my wedding day arrives.

I have also learned to recognized the joke early on, and decided to face it rapidly. I don't know if anyone, even my uncle, had noticed what I did to cope up with it easily, but then I did. Since then, I didn't take any of my father's words seriously.

As a matter of fact, what my father had told my youngest sister is already a passe to me. Those were the things that he told me many years before. But then, when he told me it was my mom that should be blamed for what had happened to us, I agreed. When he said he had changed because he's thinking about the welfare of his children, I agreed. When he said all the good things that he promised he's now doing, I agreed. I agreed, but I never believed him.

I learned the hard way. There were no shortcuts. But I am stronger now. I've become a hard diamond shaped evenly by the cruelty of life. A diamond that shines with the love of the certain people who treats me as the gem that I truly am even when I was just a coal.

My sister, on the other hand saw herself throwing the boomerang at my father only to get hit back by it, making her more vulnerable and blinded to hit his soft spot. But I have dealt with the predicaments that she's dealing with now,many years before. I know that she too, is now a coal that can easily be broken into pieces.Hiding in the dark. Learning the hard way. Undergoing changes. Ignoring the pain. Keeping the lessons. Until one day, she wouldn't even realized she have also turned into a hard diamond that no matter how many times she'll be hit back by the boomerang, it won't even make a scratch.

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