Happy Mother's Day!

Okay, so maybe not so happy. My sister's family came over to celebrate Mother's Day today. The weather was beautiful so we decided to have a barbeuce. We had the usual sausage, steak, potato, caesar salad, chicken, and vegetables. For dessert, McCain cake. The food was great.

The only problem with special days like today, is that some kind of alcohol consumption is always involed, which, between my mother and father, is usually a recipe for disaster. I can hear my parents gradually speaking louder and louder as the evening progresses and not putting too much thought into what comes out of their mouths. A few hours pass and it's time for my sister and the kids to get home. We clean up a bit and my parents plan to spend the rest of the evening in the living room, drinking and listening to old latin music.

I hear my parents talking about family and Colombia. My mother has wanted to visit her family for a few years now, but my father has always given her a hard time about it. He tends to be a very possessive man and doesn't like to share my mother with anyone, even if it's her own family. She tried to explain to him that she would love it if he went with her, but he insisted that he'd want nothing to do with travelling to Colombia. That obviously leaves my mother with no other choice than to go by herself but my father's solution to that was: "If you go to Colombia, I won't be here when you get back." That's usually my father's tactic, to threaten my mother in some way in an attempt to control what she does. The arguing went on for about twenty minutes, with my father bringing up things that were completely irrelevant to the conversation. Finally, my father's voice became much louder than my mother's as he repeatedly yelled: "Don't upset me. Please don't make me mad or you'll see!" At that point something happened to me. I remembered it was Mother's Day. I remembered how often I've heard them argue about the same things in the past. I remembered all the horrible things that have happened in the past becuase of these very same issues. I wished that my mother had the freedom to do whatever it is she wanted to do. I envisioned what our lives would be like if my father were a lot more trusting of people around him, especially those he claims to love.

When I snapped out of it, I realized that I had just thrown a small table across the room, shattering some glass candle holders, and sending my brother's digital camera to the floor. The loud noise immediately stopped any arguing that was going on, but my mother looked at me as if I were the worst son in the world. After hating the way my father's been with her for so many years, the most painful thing came out of my mother's mouth as she passed me on the way to her room: "You're just like your father. I loved those candle holders." I grabbed the vaccum and cleaned up the mess.

I'm disappointed in myself and I'm scared. Am I just like my father? I would never want to treat the women I spend the rest of my life with, the way I've seen him treat my mother.