Over two decades ago, my parents and I went through a very traumatic life event. The worst of it lasted a couple of years but the echoes remained in our lives for much longer. Recently, we had to revisit that time and I was amazed at how differently we each have processed what happened. I have seen with relative clarity the roles we each played - my personal responsibility in the outcomes and my big mistakes. For my father, the event is an undefined block with clear input and output parameters that he correctly recognizes but he uninterested introspecting the process by which things came to pass. It is a logical approach. He has cleared to the field of outputs to focus on what matters to him. The rest is irrelevant. I am not aligned with him but I understand his position.
Mother's way is by far the hardest for me to reconcile with. She has re-imagined just about everything to creative a narrative that absolves her of any responsibility or accounts for her contributions to what happened. In her alternately remembered version of the facts, she is far backstage of the events with not even a supporting role in defining outcomes. The truth is very far from that. Her has made the entire cast of characters except herself accountable and responsible for all that happened.
Revisiting the event was painful on its own but with three different version of the facts to deal with even worse. For than anything, it left me feeling I don't know or understand this woman at all that is my mother. In that sense, I am saying I don't know or understand atleast one half of me. That is like having a stranger's body and soul reside in what you think is you.
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