When you can’t explain your truth because even you can’t handle it, silence is the utmost valorous surrender.
Aside from a remarkably intelligible oldest brother who knew how to play chess before his ABCs and another brother who has multi-faceted talents, I had a really incredible brother, John, whom close family members and friends nicknamed John-John throughout his lifespan.
John-John clearly held the role of being the athletic of all my brothers. Next to his diary (which I read a partial page of many years ago and vowed to never do again out of immediate guilt), I hold one of his earliest report cards (academic marks) where Mama had noted how while John academically worked hard, he just had challenges difficult to overcome. Nonetheless, my recollections of him showed only strength and leadership.
From being taught how to cook rice (how to wash the rice several times until the water runs clear and filling the water halfway up to the first mark of the middle finger after leavening the rice) to him joyfully and so patiently showing me how to thread through a sewing machine before carefully demonstrating to me how the pedal helped to push the fabric through while sewing, there was this balance between his masculinity and secret side, both I know have influenced me to this day. His great qualities didn’t just stop there, however.
John-John modeled tidiness beyond more than anyone I know, no crease on his bed to be found with the top of his dresser having even about five hot wheels (he spray-painted some in silver and some in blue) aligned to perfection. I recall him telling me firmly not to touch any of his things to which I knew I would never dare do.
Taking care of his body with natural supplements such as drinking raw eggs was yet another intriguing exceptional discipline about him. I remember like yesterday how, with his fingers, he had pinched both sides of his face, just underneath his chin. All you could see was skin like a latex material stretching out. I was in such awed disbelief that he had me see for myself with my very own fingers. I remember how careful I was to not hurt him as he reassured me that he was fine, that big smile plastered on his face as I continued to be in silent awe.
Lean and chiseled, John-John absolutely had no body fat. Even in my most physically fit years, I recall assessing the very elasticity on my face to conclude unsuccessful. I was quite happy with that- leaving me to still give that honor to my dearly beloved brother, John. My desk in my classroom, aligning all items to be found atop, demonstrates John-John’s positive influence on me to this day all the way back to when I refashioned hand-me-downs to have something new to wear in junior high to my very own senior runway of clothes project.
It was Mother’s Day. I was in the living room close to Mama who was crocheting on the couch. John-John happily walked behind where Mama sat to surprise her with a Mother’s Day card. I recall her reading the card aloud as she held onto three dollar bills she had taken out from the card before reading it.
John-John smiled and said something of the matter, “Ma, I don’t have much, but these three dollars are priceless. You see, they stand for the words, ‘I Love You’ so you will never forget.”
That was the last heart-felt memory I had of him as he left us that summer, taken just at the age of 18 from a car accident.
There were only few times we had pictures displayed in whatever home we lived in. The first recollection was the picture of Mama’s mom, my maternal grandmother after she had passed. I still recall seeing that picture on a side table for some time. The other picture was of John-John after he had left us. Prior to that, I recalled Papa’s brother’s picture placed in his family’s house, just after he had met his tragic demise.
There was never any family picture of ours to be displayed. In any home we lived in, it seemed death was the only ticket to getting a picture up of yourself.
It can be a strange development to think this as the only way- living life as is to the eventual commemoration of you once you have left with a single portrait. Unbeknownst to my conscience, I carried that belief.
The start of my life with my husband inadvertently broke me away from this unspoken custom. Just as soon as we started dating, he suggested we take professional pictures together right away. I still recall not taking that afternoon very seriously as I had gotten off work. I know I hadn’t taken it seriously because that picture we have together shows my hair unkempt, confirming my lack of effort or desire to truly even put any thought to fixing it before the picture was taken. There was my husband, at that time, my boyfriend (Haha! How funny to say “boyfriend” after so many years!), happily smiling from ear to ear while I managed to peak a smile, indirectly even looking at the camera.
It wasn’t until our first son was born where I found myself at yet another portrait studio, this time, a good friend who insisted we take some as a starting family where she worked.
Funny how angels work to change your mental and spiritual course. What I wasn’t coming to realize was that those early photo sessions was exactly what I needed to break me away from my suppressed emotions of what portraits stood for before then.
It was always okay that pictures were being taken and developed as I recall just happily and quietly glancing at any before putting them away, sometimes making time to place each into a photo album. Most of the time, however, photos found themselves kept away in the envelopes they were placed in, never finding their way to get displayed.
It was my husband who took me to the next level of healing as he would excitedly want to display our newest updated portrait of our growing family each year.
I never told him (I believe it was just last year when I managed to share this embraced overcoming) my silently raised belief of the customary approach I grew up with in displaying selected pictures. All those years, I said absolutely nothing each time he would step back to admire a displayed portrait either placed on a table or wall. His pride for our growing family gave my heart, mind, body, and spirit what I needed to overcome any fear quietly overwhelming me each time another portrait glared back at me behind that glass front cover encompassed by a picture frame.
Every year was a therapeutic self-healing to let go and find peace of what displayed pictures had always meant to me. Never once did I stop my husband from putting our family portraits up, year after year. I have bravely loved looking at every one of those we’ve put up, recalling our giggles and sheer joy when taking them.
I have gone as far as family portraits until just a few weeks ago. Family portraits, group pictures to display have been my silent limitation. There are those families to be admired who delight in putting up school pictures of their children. I somehow could never get that far. Each time my children have come home with their school pictures, I just quietly gaze over them with awe and so much warmth in my heart, admiring each of their uniquely beautiful features, taking note of uncanny resemblances between me and my husband before putting them back into their envelopes and into a dresser.
I couldn’t and still can’t get myself to individually display those. My silence is my peace. However, with one of my sons surprising me with he and his younger brother’s latest school picture placed nicely under a glass tabletop on my bedside table, I am in the knowing that I have yet to completely finish breaking my silent truth with portraits.
My love for my children and husband is my inner strength to overcome what I see now as absurd obstacles that had been placed before me.
As many out there relate, my husband and my children are the most precious gifts to handle. So much care must be given. Even when at your best, many times heavy rain leaves you drenched due to unpredictable weathers. Still, you pray they know how much you tried to exhibit love so that they may understand the very power of its demands for sacrifice. Still, times you know, your own silent truths, having kept you powerless even within your deepest love for them, will be the greatest price you may have to pay, leaving judgment on the table for them to think you have no love at all.
To come to terms with displayed portraits, yet, priceless gifts from my husband and children exhumes another buried truth.
My husband, just as soon as he was able, has always found joy in adorning me with things. My children, even when they were not at age to buy me something, have creatively made me things throughout the years.
That heart, mind, and spirit repressively stings the body at the memory of John-John with that card and those three dollars Mama held- truth of my inability to truly know how to take in random acts of thoughtfulness from my husband and children.
I still remember the very first poem my oldest gave me with his fingerprints on them. I teared up to my disappointment, making him think perhaps I didn’t like it. He will never know how much I actually LOVED it to the very heart and soul of me. I just couldn’t explain my suppressed emotions of joy that I had now a precious child to give me something so precious as he.
The priceless gifts from my dear husband and loving trinkets and creative works from my children’s hearts kept coming, to my much need to overcome repressed hurts. The thing was, the more I would receive, the harder at times I had to silently endure and fight internal fears and anxiety that I could lose them any given instant.
Those bracelets and earrings my daughters worked hard to make me, that apron that although I did not treat with much care (because ironically, I was in so much awe at how creative my children had gotten to give me such a priceless gift with their individual messages on it that I fought my deafening thoughts of losing any of them to a point where I wore the words out to my greatest fight!), still hangs in my pantry, those letters and poems they have given me throughout the years, that musical snow globe with “MOM” on it that I have probably only had the courage to play to the end twice in all these years- they all quietly make me ache if I think too deep- right back to those three dollar bills along with John-John’s loving smile and soft-spoken words.
As I have learned his, my husband has slowly learned my truths. Will my children ever have to? Argumentatively, I’m sure, it’s one of those clause of a parent. Judgment lies within chosen silence. That is the price.
You see, true love, I have embraced, does not ask to be loved back. You love simply to do just that- love.
You are that wife who has lost the spa certificate he bought you along with those thoughtful Valentine’s coupons in the dresser or wear each pretty dress only once ever. And yet, you are that wife whose happiness comes from your husband’s smile. You are that wife who may not have all the right words or loving actions, but will undoubtedly show appreciation for all that he does with undying virtuous loyalty and sole devotion.
You are that mother that seemingly has no desire, as if you could care less about perfectly (no matter how messy the hair or wrong choice of shirt they chose to wear) taken school pictures that should be each proudly displayed. You are that mother that does ridiculously inexplicable gestures of heartlessness, as if the gifts they have bought or made you were not special to your quietly aching heart. And yet, you give with all your heart and soul, feeling utterly blessed to plant laughters into memory.
How do you explain to your children why those school portraits never got displayed?
How do you explain why you acted as if their hard-worked writings and gifts meant nothing to you?
You don’t. One day, perhaps, they will come across this article and understand. However, they don’t have to. Just like all mothers out there who have raised strong children having kept silent their weaknesses, you are and will always be their strength.
This is love.
