And hard to figure out.
I’m growing up so fast
What’s it all about?
Things are changing quickly,
Time is flying by.
I’m becoming a different person,
Sometimes I wonder why.
Sometimes it gets real scary
And I want to run away.
But I know things will fit together,
Somehow, sometime someday.
- Anonymous
My metamorphosis began (unawares to me) on the day I lost in the hospital waiting room with my mother; the day I entered my cocoon where I spent years undergoing a transformation. Heart beat by heart beat I changed, realized, awoke; I left my fiancé, moved back to my childhood home, went to college, cared for my grandparents, then my father, then found my family and myself.
The sicker my father became the more withdrawn my mother was. I had to make up for all those years of pain I inflicted on my family: my penance. I took on multiple responsibilities, including nursemaid, confidant, peace keeper, household leader - a whirlwind of responsibilities that I would never have believed humanly possible or personally capable of managing. Wasn’t I still a child? I didn’t understand what was happening in my unconscious mind; how the pieces of my life were putting together the intricate puzzle that began the day I was born. How I survived I can’t explain. I look back in wonder at the stress and confusion, and still can’t paint a picture. Then again, some consider me more than slightly off balance, but a sane insanity.
One night in my father’s room I was crushing his meds to be put through his feeding tube followed by the nutrient formula that was his only sustenance. He sat there looking at me with a look I was unfamiliar with.
“Honey, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“For what, dad.”
“For ruining your life and my family.”
“Why would you say something like that? We want you to be better. You’ve ruined nothing. Stop that.”
“My wife hates the sight of me, my children can’t be in the same room with me, and you…you I’ve been a monster to. I’m so sorry for all the things I said to you growing up; for you I was the most scared, but you are the only one here for me now. I’m so sorry.” His head fell into his hands and he cried, ashamed.
“Daddy, please, you didn’t know, and neither did I that all I went through was going to make me who I am; it made me strong for you. It made me strong for you,” fighting back my own tears I knelt down and hugged my father’s shuddering frame.
Why now when it was too late to enjoy the newfound father before me? Now that I had a father who I would be honored to walk me down the aisle; now that I had a father who was proud of me, loved me, his delinquent and rebel; now that I had a father who would beam looking into a grandchild’s eyes. Why? Why? Why!! None of this would he experience; none of this would I ever be able to share with him.
And who was I? I was a stranger to myself, feeling emotions that were foreign and developing ideals that I never before considered. Had I reverted back to my innocent childhood perspectives of family and responsibility? Or was I someone all together different? I didn’t have the time to ponder these questions at that time, nor did I until many years later, when I had time to focus on me and my experiences, when I was forced into solitude, confronted with grief and chaos; I came to understand and respect me.
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