My mother and I aren?t all that different.

I have some fond memories of my mother. Some. Not a lot. She loved taking care of me. She loved taking care of just about anyone, regardless of whether that person wanted to be taken care of or not. I still remember hearing the sound of her voice, first thing in the morning ?Bartholomew, it?s time for breakfast! Hurry up Bartholomew! What?s taking you so long! Are you still in the shower? Don?t? forget to clean behind the ears! Bartholomew! I made your favorite. French toast and oatmeal! Hurry up Bartholomew?
I HATED French toast and oatmeal. But my mother had decided that it was my favorite and one would be wiser to shave a lion with a rusty razor than to start an argument with her. So I would eat my ?favorite? breakfast in silence, seated next to my father who usually had his face buried in the newspaper. I suppose reading about rapes, murders and the fall of democracies across the world provided a welcome distraction from his marriage. I would go off to school after she had spent at least 20 minutes coming my hair and setting it in way that pleased her.
My mothers loving nature would almost always present itself in front of other people. Especially my friends. I use the term friends rather loosely here. They were just a bunch of boys I knew who bullied me less severely than the other boys I knew. She would fawn over me, fix my hair even when it needed no fixing, she would ask if her ?baby? was hungry. If he wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cut in the shape of a dinosaur? My mother?s affection would provide my ?friends? with bullying material for the rest of the week. That and the fact that I was named ?Bartholomew?. This too was my mother?s choice, of course. If it had been up to my father, I would have been named Herman after his grandfather.
Not that ?Herman? was in any way the epitome of coolness, but surely no other name could make one as irresistible to bullies as ?Bartholomew?.
My father too received my mother?s love in equal measure. The phone calls would start as soon as he had reached the office. Mother felt the need to remind him a dozen times what he was to pick up from the grocery store that day. When we went out together, she felt a pathological need to fix his tie. Or to touch his face and clean off invisible specks of dirt. Surely, a man who held down a demanding job, had a college education, had real hopes and dreams for the future at one time was completely incapable of dressing himself properly. No. It was up to her to make sure that we were presentable when we stepped out.
My dad would bear all of this in silence. He would just sit there quietly, waiting for her to finish. Of course, the silence too would tick my mother off ?DON?T THINK I DON?T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN WHEN YOU JUST SIT THERE SAYING NOHTING LIKE THAT!?.
For a long time, I believed that was the reason dad left us. I didn?t blame him for leaving. I just blamed him for leaving me behind. With dad gone, I became the sole focus of my mother?s attention. Her only pet project. She was now on a mission to turn me into the kind of man she wished my dad had been.
She made me give up one of the few joys I had in life ? my Legos. She said they were for children. That I was about to become a man and needed manly interests. She wanted me to take up carpentry. I agreed halfheartedly just to get her to leave me alone.
Then one day when I came home from school, a horrific sight awaited me in my room. My precious collection of Batman comics was nowhere to be seen. Tales of the Caped Crusader that helped me escape my unbearable reality, my one comfort in this world. Gone!
I flew downstairs and confronted my mother. She was on the phone and told me to ?shush?. My anger was boiling over. I had trouble breathing and all this miserable **** could do was chatter away on the phone with some other ****. She finally ended the conversation and looked up at me. She gave me a disgusted look and asked ? What?s wrong with you? Anyway, I was just on the phone with Mrs. Normandy and she invited us to..?
?WHERE ARE MY COMICS???? I screamed, interrupting her. Not something she was used to.
?What? Those silly, childish thing? You don?t need those Bartholomew, they?re for kids. You weren?t going to grow up and get rid of them, so I threw them out for you. Trust me sweetie, you?ll thank me someday. Anyway?.?
She didn?t get to finish that sentence. This monster had cast a dark shadow over my happiness, my dignity and any sense of individuality I had ever since the day I was born and now she took away my comic books! My ****ing Batman comics! She just couldn?t let me have this tiny bit of happiness. I saw red.
I literally saw red. Red was everywhere. It was on the floor, it was leaking out of my mother?s skull and it was on my hands. And in my hands was the bronze Laughing Buddha she kept on the mantelpiece.
I collapse to my knees and cried. I bawled, I howled like a wounded animal. The most honest display of emotions I had ever shown in my mother?s proximity. In time, I was able to pick myself up.
It was dark now. I needed to get rid of the body. I took the shovel out of the shed and began to dig in the lawn. The hole would have to be deep enough. Then I?d have to clean up the blood and get rid of the murder weapon too. The next day, I would call the cops and tell them I couldn?t find my mom?.I didn?t get to finish that thought. My shovel had struck something soft. Illumination provided by the flashlight revealed that it was an arm. A human arm. A human arm attached to a decomposing body that had once been my father. My dad hadn?t left me behind after all. My mother just got sick of him not living up to her expectations and decided he was too much trouble.
I collapsed to the ground for the second time. Tears poured out of my eyes yet again. But this time they were of genuine grief and loss. And the strangest thought occurred to me. My mother and I weren?t all that different.


Source.