Filial Laws

“What your father needs is patience and a consistent routine,” the doctor says. What he needs is something he never gave me. Our relationship was never built on gentleness. The relationship only depended on rigid, unforgiving authority. When that failed, nothing remained. It runs like a lack of feedback in a open-loop.

“You don’t know what’s in our hearts. You don’t realize our love for you,” my mother says. If it’s not obvious, then it was never really there, I wanted to say. The smell of her perfume lingers as she walks. It smells sweet yet it triggers memories that form a lump of bile my throat.

She gives a half-hearted try at niceness, then old habits set in. The criticism, the meanspirited comments.

Still, I did their laundry, cleaned soiled sheets, picked up every prescription, scheduled every appointment. I want to reciprocate their cruelty, but they have it hardwired into me that I care for them.

Still, every day I hear, it’s not enough.

My aunt tells me that I’m doing the right thing. This is how I pay my parents back for raising me. My duty. Their right for raising me. My years of education and career were their retirement plan.

We take walks every afternoon, my father and I. He speaks about his life and passions, and I tune him out. His words seem genuine, but the words are foreign coming from his mouth. He’ll never remember, I tell myself when the guilt sets in. it’s just hard trying to have a conversation with a man who has always told me I must only be seen and not heard. I don’t want to refuse the connection, but I can’t safely absorb the load.

He won’t remember, I tell myself again as I give into bitterness.

Yet I still remember the berating, his face twisting in anger at every mistake, and the cutting words like sharp wires. Tough love, he would mutter at my tears.

I walk with him, even though I’d rather be anywhere else. Because the doctor notes his weight is a little too high.

Every Tuesday late morning I do their grocery shopping, going to three different stores, making sure they get everything exactly as the doctor ordered. I know I’ll get complaints about the lack of seasoning and a diatribe on all my inadequacies. It wasn’t all bad, I try to remind myself. However, I draw a blank when I try to think of the good times. It’s like trying to query a system that had been running for years without logging enabled.

Every evening, dinner is made on time. And the comments come. I want to argue, but the doctor says arguing will raise their blood pressure, so I suck it up.

Every night I give them their medicine. They try at smiles and play the roles of loving parents. That they didn’t spend the whole day and my entire life putting me down. There is a connection missing here. The current flows, but the energy goes only one way.

None of this heals. It does not resolve the high expectations. The lack of kindness. This ritual in caregiving has become a prison for me. It is thankless. It punishes more than it rewards.

It is sacrifice. My mental health for their longevity.

Does an act mean the same if it’s devoid of love and mired in resentment?

It’s difficult building a relationship off years hurt and disappointment.

Love turns bitter when it’s based only on obligation.

Every day I watch them sink further into decline. I don’t feel happy about it. I don’t feel sad either. The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. I do my duty and nothing else.

Everyday my husband and I wake up together. We exercise together. We move through the house like a pair of old trees sharing the same ground.

We do laundry together. We wash the dishes. We smooth each other’s edges.

I don’t have to walk on eggshells around him. There are no hidden meanings behind words. No barbed comments.

At night, he plays video games, and I read. There’s safety in the monotony.

I don’t have to pretend. There’s nothing sinister behind these rituals. No hurt.

Every night as we lay in bed, he tells me I am enough. It’s through our relationship I experience what love should be like. Like a tree giving me shade, shielding me from the sun's harmful rays. With that, I can truly break the cycle. My children will know love without conditions.

Love is a gasp of fresh air when it’s sincere.