Sometimes I forget I'm not his mother.
I went up to his room and saw him blankly watching TV in his room again, with that damn long ungroomed hair cut, the mess everywhere and that utterance "I don't know".
I woke up. It was just a nightmare.
"Dad's on the phone"
"Mom's dead"
"You gave up smoking" it was a special occasion.
Last time I hold a cigaratte was during the days of 4h sleeps, going from the restaurant to the army to the high tech firm, when we set at the garden after cleaning the kitchen and cleaning the lungs from the filthy adrenaline fulled air.
All I could think was that it finally ended.
I stood outside of the airport, finishing the cigarrete before going home.
I thought about my argument with my dad. Just a few weeks ago I rented my own apartment, started my own life.
She was waiting in the car, I wondered how will our first interaction would go down. Last time I saw her... we argued?
Yea, it was at the day of my black belt examination, a day before I left to Bulgaria. I ignored her while I hanged the new paintings on the wall. She was shouting at me about something, I don't remember what, but I went out of the house. "I won't let her spoil this day" I told my dad on the phone, I had to remain focused for the exam.
"I have to do this, don't I?" I cried.
"I can't stop you if you do"
"do you think it will slow me down in my career?"
"definitely"
But I guess I had to. I don't know if we talked about my martial art training or my sibling.
I knew I wasn't cut out for that programming gig. I needed to resolve the violence in my life, just one year of daily training to find what I was looking for, I didn't know what it was. My trainer just retired from the special ops and he began teaching agents at the police station. That was my opprotunity.
Or was it about him.
I remember my dad talking to him through the car phone. 150 missing days off school that year alone. He gave up. They needed a real adult at home.
She was happy to see me. Cooked food for my coming, talked about him, how he doesn't pay attention at school but she is trying to work with him.
I was silent.
The car pulled near the house.
Her voice shattered a bit as she pleaded at me not go hard on him.
I realized what she was thinking about. She finally feared me. She realized she failed with his education and she thought she knew why I came back.
I didn't even know why I came back.
I thought I'm just thinking of my own personal interests.
I was about to leave the car "You can hurt me, but I would never forgive you for what you've done to by siblings"
Perhaps I was too harsh on her.
I broke, I cried.
Two days after boxing days, two days after her death.
I worked at a wedding gig in Birm and we rented a house in the outskirts.
I broke down by the staircase, hoping no one would hear me, as I talked to my dad on the phone.
"I wish I could have done more"
I wish I knew some way to fix this or at least... I wish I wasn't so harsh on her.
He obviously justified me.
No one would accuse a daughter of a deceased alcoholic.
Sometimes I feel like this is what I look for. That my redemption would come by finding someone who would blame me for her death.
To some extent, I find it more relieving, to take the blame, the pain, the burden on me, instead of the scattered ruins it left everywhere.
And so I look for things that were left unheard to testify on.
I looked her in the eyes and told her the worst thing I can think of
"No matter what would you do, you could never redeem yourself" and she knew I was right.
Perhaps she drank to forget. It is better to lose ones mind then to bare its corruption.
So I went down on him.
I took his tv, his toys, I told him to study harder.
Nothing would heal the gap that was formed between us that day.
With all the kinship that was formed between us within the years after, he would forever fear me, for I was the one that brought order to his anarchaic life.
The first day was a nightmare I can never fully wake up from.
The house was a mess, his wild dog shitting everywhere, screams and the bed was a mess.
I already missed my settled life back in Bulgaria.
But it taught me that human beings don't seek comfort, they seek to suffer for a goal higher then themselves. A human without a goal is either dying or already a lifeless corpse.
And that's the first lesson I wished to engrave to him.
I didn't mind which goal he would set, I just wished he would be motivated for something.
The hair, the mess, his failure at school, all stemmed from the fact that he gave up.
We begun with small achieveable goals: he loved dogs, so I pushed him to study dog training, volunteer with dogs, anything Assaph, just please, do something.
He didn't believe in himself.
We argued over another failed test as he broke into tears and told me.
What she did to my siblings.
Maybe it was justified, or at least righteous.
The words creep up to my memory.
She lays on the couch, weed scattered on the floor, as he dances around to make her laugh.
"You exist only to amuse me" she told him.
You see Judge, justice is a matter of inflicting cruelty for a justified cause.
And indeed, I was cruel and yes, one may argue it was for a good reason, but I didn't have a cause.
I was just vengeful. I knew my acts could never change the course of the story, and I knew that by making her suffer, I wasn't fighting any evil, I didn't act out of innocence. I knew her poor circumstances.
The words she used on my brother, were the same words her mother told her.
Her Turkish mother married a young white officer to secure her well-being. She supported him when he struggled financially to rise to his feet, but it all payed off by the time she was born. Her older siblings knew harder days, but they were out of the house when she came to the world.
When she was just a teenager, her father was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she faced his gradual decline alone. Her mother gave up, she didn't have the power to face another struggle.
Her siblings hold a grudge, for the days of hardship.
So she was left there, to amuse her.
She eventually escaped to my father's arms, but as a child craving for her daddy. He could not provide her emotionally needs and they got divorced.
Like her mother, she idealized marriage and love. She fought for him to stand up and he can't leave her.
She didn't have motivation to continue on whilst her ideales were shattered, she wasn't clever enough to build a bigger picture, and the children? they were always just figures in this painting.
My dad never abandoned her completely. He continued sending her a lot of money. Money she could have spent to create a better life, but she never had big goals
I could never hate her, I felt sorry for her. She was just a pathetic creature that needed attention, help. Support which I didn't have the energy, time or empathy to provide.
Fortuna is a neglectful mother.
In the middle of the shouting she came out of her room, barely able to walk as she accuses him for being a bad son.
I told her I'm on it, he looked at me with swollen eyes.
He had a goal in life and it was to protect his mother. He failed and of course he failed, a young child can't help his parents.
But why was I supposed to be the one that would fail him?
"She's drunk again, she told me she won't drink again"
I know. You fear me, but from that day on I couldn't but feel responsible for your life.
We sat on a bench. I had to take him out of the house. They called it 'Metuka' it was a sweet doughy bread with weird sauces inside. It was a hot Israeli day. I light a cigarrete and waited for my sister to come. I knew what we're supposed to do. He knew it would come. We would talk him out of staying with his mother, he would move to his dad.
And so it was.
The house fell silent for three days. I didn't know what to tell him. At the day of the flight I couldn't let my mother come with him, she was drunk. I saw her from the window of the taxi.
I've done many sins during my stay in Israel, but taking a chid from a mother was the worst of all. Her blank, drunk stare haunts me.
I'm reminded of these days every time when I talk to him about his goals in life.
His dreams grew in size as he began studying more. A mathematician, a lawyer.
At days when I know he slacks at school, I fear he'll return to these days.
I know that he knows this is what I think of, I fear sometimes that he thinks I see him as the irresponsible brat he once was.
But he was never an irresponsible brat to my eyes.
He was my precious child. Smart, talented, with a sharp mischevous smirk on his face. I could never think it was out of malice, he was just rigid from days of hardship.
We didn't have the time to talk about it. He was with his dad and I stayed behind with her. I didn't want her to kill herself the moment he was gone, he would have blamed himself for that.
She went on a drinking spree, I didn't know where she was most of the times.
Apparentely never did she, her memory got blank.
People who saw her during that time said she behaved derangely.
She had the mental state of a zombie.
There were days I wondered if there was anything to salvage.
The house was cold, empty.
At nights she crawled around fully naked, marks from drinking on her body, from bruises to yellow teeth.
She eventually agreed to go to rehab, but that's a story for another day.
In one of my last days in Israel, I remember
I drained a bottle she concealed under her bed, she came shouting from her room, trying to beat me up
"can't you see that I want to die?
that I don't have any more power to live?"
And I slapped her. I slapped her hard and shouted
"I'm doing this for him" she had to stay alive so he won't give up.
That was the only time I rose my hand against her. It was enough for her to use it against me.
The threat of being turned to the police was always dangling above me. And with the scars in her face, her story always seemed believeable.
I could always return to Israel.
Thankfully I left before I got arrested for anything.
But something stops me.
Israel is the land of the dead for me. The land I gave up on for so many reasons. The singularity of the flux of emotions, thoughts and recollections.
I'm not good, nor am I evil. Just like every other person, I just live within the complex circumstances of life. We are all part of the human tragedy.
I am not in constant suffering, but I find my pleasure in strange areas.
I watch him grow, struggle, morph, and brings a smile to my face.
Growth is the only telos of life.
I went up to his room and saw him blankly watching TV in his room again, with that damn long ungroomed hair cut, the mess everywhere and that utterance "I don't know".
I woke up. It was just a nightmare.
"Dad's on the phone"
"Mom's dead"
"You gave up smoking" it was a special occasion.
Last time I hold a cigaratte was during the days of 4h sleeps, going from the restaurant to the army to the high tech firm, when we set at the garden after cleaning the kitchen and cleaning the lungs from the filthy adrenaline fulled air.
All I could think was that it finally ended.
I stood outside of the airport, finishing the cigarrete before going home.
I thought about my argument with my dad. Just a few weeks ago I rented my own apartment, started my own life.
She was waiting in the car, I wondered how will our first interaction would go down. Last time I saw her... we argued?
Yea, it was at the day of my black belt examination, a day before I left to Bulgaria. I ignored her while I hanged the new paintings on the wall. She was shouting at me about something, I don't remember what, but I went out of the house. "I won't let her spoil this day" I told my dad on the phone, I had to remain focused for the exam.
"I have to do this, don't I?" I cried.
"I can't stop you if you do"
"do you think it will slow me down in my career?"
"definitely"
But I guess I had to. I don't know if we talked about my martial art training or my sibling.
I knew I wasn't cut out for that programming gig. I needed to resolve the violence in my life, just one year of daily training to find what I was looking for, I didn't know what it was. My trainer just retired from the special ops and he began teaching agents at the police station. That was my opprotunity.
Or was it about him.
I remember my dad talking to him through the car phone. 150 missing days off school that year alone. He gave up. They needed a real adult at home.
She was happy to see me. Cooked food for my coming, talked about him, how he doesn't pay attention at school but she is trying to work with him.
I was silent.
The car pulled near the house.
Her voice shattered a bit as she pleaded at me not go hard on him.
I realized what she was thinking about. She finally feared me. She realized she failed with his education and she thought she knew why I came back.
I didn't even know why I came back.
I thought I'm just thinking of my own personal interests.
I was about to leave the car "You can hurt me, but I would never forgive you for what you've done to by siblings"
Perhaps I was too harsh on her.
I broke, I cried.
Two days after boxing days, two days after her death.
I worked at a wedding gig in Birm and we rented a house in the outskirts.
I broke down by the staircase, hoping no one would hear me, as I talked to my dad on the phone.
"I wish I could have done more"
I wish I knew some way to fix this or at least... I wish I wasn't so harsh on her.
He obviously justified me.
No one would accuse a daughter of a deceased alcoholic.
Sometimes I feel like this is what I look for. That my redemption would come by finding someone who would blame me for her death.
To some extent, I find it more relieving, to take the blame, the pain, the burden on me, instead of the scattered ruins it left everywhere.
And so I look for things that were left unheard to testify on.
I looked her in the eyes and told her the worst thing I can think of
"No matter what would you do, you could never redeem yourself" and she knew I was right.
Perhaps she drank to forget. It is better to lose ones mind then to bare its corruption.
So I went down on him.
I took his tv, his toys, I told him to study harder.
Nothing would heal the gap that was formed between us that day.
With all the kinship that was formed between us within the years after, he would forever fear me, for I was the one that brought order to his anarchaic life.
The first day was a nightmare I can never fully wake up from.
The house was a mess, his wild dog shitting everywhere, screams and the bed was a mess.
I already missed my settled life back in Bulgaria.
But it taught me that human beings don't seek comfort, they seek to suffer for a goal higher then themselves. A human without a goal is either dying or already a lifeless corpse.
And that's the first lesson I wished to engrave to him.
I didn't mind which goal he would set, I just wished he would be motivated for something.
The hair, the mess, his failure at school, all stemmed from the fact that he gave up.
We begun with small achieveable goals: he loved dogs, so I pushed him to study dog training, volunteer with dogs, anything Assaph, just please, do something.
He didn't believe in himself.
We argued over another failed test as he broke into tears and told me.
What she did to my siblings.
Maybe it was justified, or at least righteous.
The words creep up to my memory.
She lays on the couch, weed scattered on the floor, as he dances around to make her laugh.
"You exist only to amuse me" she told him.
You see Judge, justice is a matter of inflicting cruelty for a justified cause.
And indeed, I was cruel and yes, one may argue it was for a good reason, but I didn't have a cause.
I was just vengeful. I knew my acts could never change the course of the story, and I knew that by making her suffer, I wasn't fighting any evil, I didn't act out of innocence. I knew her poor circumstances.
The words she used on my brother, were the same words her mother told her.
Her Turkish mother married a young white officer to secure her well-being. She supported him when he struggled financially to rise to his feet, but it all payed off by the time she was born. Her older siblings knew harder days, but they were out of the house when she came to the world.
When she was just a teenager, her father was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she faced his gradual decline alone. Her mother gave up, she didn't have the power to face another struggle.
Her siblings hold a grudge, for the days of hardship.
So she was left there, to amuse her.
She eventually escaped to my father's arms, but as a child craving for her daddy. He could not provide her emotionally needs and they got divorced.
Like her mother, she idealized marriage and love. She fought for him to stand up and he can't leave her.
She didn't have motivation to continue on whilst her ideales were shattered, she wasn't clever enough to build a bigger picture, and the children? they were always just figures in this painting.
My dad never abandoned her completely. He continued sending her a lot of money. Money she could have spent to create a better life, but she never had big goals
I could never hate her, I felt sorry for her. She was just a pathetic creature that needed attention, help. Support which I didn't have the energy, time or empathy to provide.
Fortuna is a neglectful mother.
In the middle of the shouting she came out of her room, barely able to walk as she accuses him for being a bad son.
I told her I'm on it, he looked at me with swollen eyes.
He had a goal in life and it was to protect his mother. He failed and of course he failed, a young child can't help his parents.
But why was I supposed to be the one that would fail him?
"She's drunk again, she told me she won't drink again"
I know. You fear me, but from that day on I couldn't but feel responsible for your life.
We sat on a bench. I had to take him out of the house. They called it 'Metuka' it was a sweet doughy bread with weird sauces inside. It was a hot Israeli day. I light a cigarrete and waited for my sister to come. I knew what we're supposed to do. He knew it would come. We would talk him out of staying with his mother, he would move to his dad.
And so it was.
The house fell silent for three days. I didn't know what to tell him. At the day of the flight I couldn't let my mother come with him, she was drunk. I saw her from the window of the taxi.
I've done many sins during my stay in Israel, but taking a chid from a mother was the worst of all. Her blank, drunk stare haunts me.
I'm reminded of these days every time when I talk to him about his goals in life.
His dreams grew in size as he began studying more. A mathematician, a lawyer.
At days when I know he slacks at school, I fear he'll return to these days.
I know that he knows this is what I think of, I fear sometimes that he thinks I see him as the irresponsible brat he once was.
But he was never an irresponsible brat to my eyes.
He was my precious child. Smart, talented, with a sharp mischevous smirk on his face. I could never think it was out of malice, he was just rigid from days of hardship.
We didn't have the time to talk about it. He was with his dad and I stayed behind with her. I didn't want her to kill herself the moment he was gone, he would have blamed himself for that.
She went on a drinking spree, I didn't know where she was most of the times.
Apparentely never did she, her memory got blank.
People who saw her during that time said she behaved derangely.
She had the mental state of a zombie.
There were days I wondered if there was anything to salvage.
The house was cold, empty.
At nights she crawled around fully naked, marks from drinking on her body, from bruises to yellow teeth.
She eventually agreed to go to rehab, but that's a story for another day.
In one of my last days in Israel, I remember
I drained a bottle she concealed under her bed, she came shouting from her room, trying to beat me up
"can't you see that I want to die?
that I don't have any more power to live?"
And I slapped her. I slapped her hard and shouted
"I'm doing this for him" she had to stay alive so he won't give up.
That was the only time I rose my hand against her. It was enough for her to use it against me.
The threat of being turned to the police was always dangling above me. And with the scars in her face, her story always seemed believeable.
I could always return to Israel.
Thankfully I left before I got arrested for anything.
But something stops me.
Israel is the land of the dead for me. The land I gave up on for so many reasons. The singularity of the flux of emotions, thoughts and recollections.
I'm not good, nor am I evil. Just like every other person, I just live within the complex circumstances of life. We are all part of the human tragedy.
I am not in constant suffering, but I find my pleasure in strange areas.
I watch him grow, struggle, morph, and brings a smile to my face.
Growth is the only telos of life.
