This week I've realized that there are a lot of things in life that act as mirrors. Children are mirrors for their parents and books, movies and tv shows can be mirrors to everyone of other human experience.
Every day I become more conscious of the parts of me that resemble my mother or my father. Overall in personality I'm more more like my Dad but I definitely share many traits with my Mom. I realize now more than ever how my parents actions or inactions have shaped my life.
From my mother I learned that you have to be cool and unruffled under all circumstances and that you should put others first. I watched my mother endure the slow death of her father all the while holding together our family, translating what the doctors were telling us, minding my Grandmother, minding us and even staying up all night with my Grandfather in the ICU doing the job of the ICU nurses. My mother did all of this without cracking once. She held everything together. Even during the funeral she was the voice of strength and reason. No visible part of her stopped functioning. She always did what was right over what was easy.
From my Dad I learned to take pride in what you do. To take your time and do it right the first time. To be organized and to have faith in yourself. My Dad is a good example of being understated but believing in yourself and your abilities.
I often wonder though if my parents have ever looked at my sisters and I and realized how much of who they are have rubbed off on us. How many traits did they realize that they possessed from seeing them reflected back to them by us.
When I think about what I feel most strongly about in life now they are all traits I've seen my parents exhibit. Doing the right thing for the sake of it being right is something I really value now. Doing the right thing when it is easier to turn your back on it. I've never seen my parents shirk away from that.
With everything that is going on in my family back home right now, I've never seen my mother do the easier thing to ease the burden she has to carry. She does it because it's what she is supposed to do. It's what a child does for their elderly parent.
I don't mean to imply that she doesn't do it out of love, because she does, it's just that it's more than love that keeps her doing it. She gets little or no thanks for it and in fact what she usually gets is contempt, anger and bitterness from those involved. But that doesn't cause her to give up. She keeps at it despite the difficulty and the strain all the while putting the needs of others first.
I know this is something that I have spent my entire life soaking up. This is what I have always tried to do. To put the needs of others before my own. Mostly it has been to my detriment. I have been vilified, insulted, taken for granted, taken advantage of and abandoned by the very people I wanted to support and after that I still found it in me to forgive them. And so the cycle continued.
I have realized that despite my mother's best intentions she's become a martyr. It is a role she has become so accustomed to playing she knows no other way. This is where the mirror of her experience is staring me in the face and making me realize that you can be empathetic, caring and generous without being a doormat.
I've realized that you can give without giving away your soul to people who spend their life leeching away at other people's generosity. "Don't waste time on people who aren't willing to waste time on you."
