Reflections on Relationships

All my closest friends seem to have something in common with each other, but not with me. They grew up with close relationships with their mothers. I grew up without the benefit of a loving mother. Instead, my mother who was Korean went back to Korea after my parents divorced. I was constantly told about how they said she was crazy. I still remember visiting her when I was very small, at the hospital. She was sleeping on the floor, in a room with bars for a door. If she wasn't mentally ill, the vision of that and the stories I heard growing up may have fostered a propensity towards neurosis. It was only after I had entered my teens that I was told that she wasn't crazy by one of my aunts.

I grew up with my grandmother raising me. She was a superstitious woman without the benefit of even a complete elementary school education. She had, in retrospect, an anger and contempt towards anyone who even showed trace of knowing anything more than she did, including her children and grandchildren. She had a confidence problem. She knew plenty, and was not stupid, but didn't get a formal education. She also had told me that my mom was a schoolteacher in Korea.

I remember the stories of how she beat my mom with a mop. Once when my mom came into the house, the floor appeared to be wet and so my mom started trying to dry it with a mop. My grandmother had just waxed the floor (back before they had the easy waxes of today). My grandmother grabbed the mop and started beating her. Being from Korea, my mom had never seen a floor waxed. So I think between culture shock and stress from my grandmother and the rest of the family, my mom could easily have been desperate.

The house I remember most growing up in was situated between those of two of my aunts’ houses. They didn’t speak to one another for years at a time, and there was a lot of friction there. I had to listen to both sides, and sometimes more of a story, and had to learn not to be judgmental. My grandmother even would accuse one of my aunts of “doing witchcraft” on her. This was the aunt that in reality minded her own business, was the more benevolent of the two. She raised her children the best she could, with honesty and tolerance and I believe they knew she loved them.

My dad was likely one of the worst parents of the family. I remember seeing him just 3 times before I reached the age of 12. All totaled, the time was likely less than a day. And he didn’t call. When I was 12, he retired from the Air Force. Within a few weeks he took a job with –guess who- the Air Force base in Panama City, Florida, one of the stinkiest cities ever with their paper plant. We lived in Tampa. He came to visit the every other weekend. When the summer rolled around, he started taking either my brother or I with him for the two weeks between visits. While he was at work, he would leave us at the house where he was renting a room. When he was there, there wasn’t much going on between us, and I didn’t like it. I soon quit going with him.

I didn’t get much of what most people do, not the healthy ones anyway. I developed a somewhat independent personality. I don’t like asking for help, because I don’t like disappointment. I have had enough of that, especially from those whose jobs should give support. Some people have a propensity for turning what could be a great job into an opportunity to lord over others, impeding instead of helping, telling you what you should have done (something that can’t be done at that point), instead of addressing the problem at hand. It’s frustrating.

I think I have managed to lose one bad habit I learned growing up. I don’t hate anymore. This has freed me from a lot of seething anger. I rely upon the concept of karma. You get what you give. Give what is good get what is good. Give what is meant to harm get what is meant to harm. This is simplicity at its best. Let the universe take care of those who do you harm, its just a matter of time and circumstances. They will probably think they got away with it, and escalate their abuses. It’ll catch up with them. If they steal from you, they will be stolen from. If they take credit for your work, credit will be taken from them. It isn’t exactly even, but it is just. If it were meant to be otherwise, it would be otherwise. Give them what they want. They will get what they deserve. It sounds like I’m being vindictive, but I’m not. The universe metes out all the vindication necessary. Like George C. Scott said in one of his movies, “Its like pissing in the wind, it all comes back to you.”

On a higher level, we should remember the conservation of energy and conservation of matter laws. Nothing is destroyed it just changes. If we think of actions as an instance of energy, then that energy is never destroyed.

I owe much of the loss of hatred to Marsha Toohey. Marsha and her husband Don were the owners of Reliable Sheetmetal. We used to talk after work while she was waiting for Don to pick her up. She was a good and wise woman. I was fortunate and blessed to have known her. Thank you Marsha, wherever you are now.

Charles