Hidden Tears of My Mother - A Witness to Her Sorrow

When things were tough; my Mom would smile. She would pray and go to church all the time. She was in complete service and she was raised by nuns after her Mother was traumatized and raped during Jap-Am war…she was the “Harriet Tubman” through the jungles she lead people to safety my mother’s mother. She had to heal and allowed the nuns to watch her little girl, only 3 years old. She stayed 10 years until her mother remarried a second husband. 

She met my Dad at a tech vocational school and they were in love. She loved that my Dad was strong and protective but she didn’t know how to see any red flags from any man. She was raised by women. Devotion and hard work and sacrifice is what she knew. She was innocent and sweet. She was giving and needed to feel loved. She didn’t know how to cook when she married and he taught her how to cook. She learned and did her best.

When the VietNam war broke out my Dad was recruited. He needed an education and didn’t want to rely on his parents. What a dire exchange of humanity in him for education. Wouldn’t it be great if there were affordable and free colleges for those in need? If only, then many lives would not be bought and sacrificed for war.

As time grew, my Dad got out of the military because his father was very ill and almost died a few times as he came back to pray the rosary until his father would look at him. He had the faith and love of God in his own way. He then got out to find he couldn’t adjust to civilian life. It was hard and he was not understood and there was no help in terms of mental assistance and adjustment. It was a very harsh and dire exchange indeed.

As he got depressed, unable to keep a job and violently acting out to his superiors; he would go into deep depression episodes and not work. My Mother was struggling to assist. At times she took me to work with her at the library. I knew the hardship and the times he threw the only meal we had on the floor we all needed to eat. It was a struggle and sometimes we went hungry. It was hard and my mother would take breaks from work and go to the restroom. I felt her. I felt her sadness and overwhelming pain and anxiety as she tried to keep it together. I saw her grasp her face in tears in the bathroom. She couldn’t show it to her bosses who passed her up for years of promotions she deserved as a brown woman. She cried and then I would know and witness her tears. I wanted to hold her but she was not used to being comforted or hugged. She was not used to being touched. She would scold me to get away from her in her fight to fight back the tears and get back to work.

She had her own warrior duties to fulfill and nothing was going to be given to her. I remember other times when school was out there were arguments of Dad getting depressed. We didn’t know what to do. She would take us to church…that was her answer and that’s what cared for her when she felt so alone as a child. She had a family in the church and everyone knew her by her smile. There were times I would ask her not to say harsh words when she reached a point of frustration with my Dad. She needed to pay bills and she needed to feed and clothe us and keep herself up.

There were times I would see her cry more than once in the bathroom at work and no one knew her smiles masked her pain. She showed no harshness to people and she helped with all her strength and heart. She was needed as she was a warrior of duty. I remember times when they fought and she would try to hang on. Hang on to the thought she would have a man mentally able and well to function. Who refused food stamps or government assistance while we were hungry and didn’t apply to the disability he could’ve been allotted if only he had faith that if he took a step forward to the government that had him fight for him could give back something to him if only he applied…his dyslexia discouraged him filling forms but with owning up to it to the people about that would’ve made it much easier to fulfill but he was too proud to ask for help. He was a traumatized soldier and from childhood and when you are traumatized; you have a hard time understanding help can be done without being ashamed and no one is there to tell you that you are less if you do. No patriarchal echoes of belittling and discouragement and being a man to suck it up and get going.

Life was a challenge…I remember playing chess when young and strategies were learned. I would beat my father at the game but I used my intuition. He didn’t know and I didn’t know what that was. It became helpful when a family friend tried to violate me during the summer or times when school was on break and strategies came up to save me from harm and my intuition.

There was a time my father had struck my Mother and hit her so hard it bruised her cheek and I got up to check on her. He told her to be quiet but he couldn’t see how hard he hit her. He didn’t usually hit my Mother but he did have threats, yells and break household items or punch doors and walls, etc. when he was out of control. Leaving the mess and the house in shambles as I got up to clear up what I could and clean as she cried. I would comfort my Mother and tell her it was okay and get her a cold cloth for her cheek. He told me to go to my room and I said, “I want to make sure everyone is okay.” I went and he lost it again in his rage. He was punching my bedroom door a few times. I opened it; and his fist was inches from my face and he stopped. I told him: What are you doing? Look at what you are doing? And he then told us that he had enough of this family. My brothers stayed in the bedroom. He proceeded to tear off the bathroom towel closet doors, the front door in pieces and the kitchen door in almost pieces with the appliances tossed around and my brother’s plants destroyed tossed in their pots that were broken. He sat there in his bewilderment and smoked a cigarette and was laughing. It was a crazy laugh. I calmly looked at him and then a knock came to the door…it was his long time friend who got him work and drinking buddy. He saw us cleaning up and asked my Dad to come with him and he stayed away a few days. When he left; I was glad…then as time grew his leaving would be months and then more than one month or 2 and into 6 to 8 months at times struggling to pay the mortgage. 

Both were terrible at managing money. She was supporting the church and her appearance that she was okay and normal and successful. No one even knew her troubles, some personal and some didn’t know the financial ones as well. 

She was untrained to be a mother and wife. She was a religious and strong in faith woman often called the ‘Saint’ at church. Everyone loved her and her smile used as the mask that things were rosy and cheery. It was better to cover up the darkness in her life in her home than reveal the ugly truth that it wasn’t. She didn’t even share it with her dearest friends as when she died I friended a woman of hers and told her of her plight with the PTSD from my Dad and her. They understood her and were shocked why she covered up and didn’t ask for help or leave. 

It was something in those days you didn’t share or talk about. Yet, I would see her tears off and on and give her a tissue to blow her nose and dab her eyes. She was a woman who withstood so much and so did my Dad. He needed so much from his government in terms of wellness and healing programs that veterans always need.

I am sad to say that the whole batch of us going to war will come back this way and be a vicious and tragic cycle of new family’s suffering from PTSD. When a soldier comes home with PTSD and there’s no help or rehabilitation not simply drugging them numb and nothing else; there will be other mothers or fathers where their children watch their tears. Watch them at their lowest point and have to conquer the inherited demons to slay if they can with the hard work ahead. I pray we do not lose any more soldiers or family’s of the military from domestic violence, suicide or drug or alcohol abuse to numb the pain that doesn’t lessen if there are no alternative methods of healing to manage their anxiety, stress and pain. We need to pay real attention and admit that the damage needs to be undone for the sake of our future children and families.

Military can be used to build wells, build buildings for schools, homes and hospitals, grow food, and irrigation to build up the people instead of damage and destruction. We need to mend the way our military functions as this is not a videogame and we really are not characters or actors or avatars…we are in the real world and choosing repair and construction instead of destruction and tragedy is the best alternative choice for life.

I don’t want any other spouses, partners and children to see those tears or cry themselves to sleep unknowing how to cope when the aftermath of the war is brought back with your loved one and wreaks havoc in your home. I am only sharing this to let you know to become aware and make this world much better than it was. Thank you for reading this.