Pat My Back for a Breeding Hack

“Have you seen my childhood?” Michael Jackson sings these lyrics with sheer emotion, somehow grimacing with the pain of lost childhood. Not everyone can handle the distress when they connect the dots in their own lives. Some suffer in silence, others cry out in disillusionment because there is such a twinge of mislaid or bungled childhood. Though we’ve always been advised to shake our heads and get over it, we could not deny the obvious impression of childhood woes (or wows) in our lives especially during adolescence. And this girl is no different...

She would show up like a placid river with that gentle flow of painful releases. She was ignored and bruised to leaving her abode or shall I call it quarters? She said she threw her clothes in her 1 ½ bags and immediately set to come back to her former place, for a vacation maybe. Here, all her childhood prodding took shape. She had a family then and much more complete without her real mother ... and father. Her grandma, aunts, uncles, cousins were physically all around her. She had the material things she needed. Everyone, in his/her own little ways, influenced her life. She thought she was the favorite, well, by her grandma perhaps. She practically grew up with her and the old woman loved her…very much. But she was taunted and mocked unwittingly by everyone else – nobody realized this somehow. She would then search for the social nod that would push up her person over her peers. And then, this placid lake (did I say river?) swirled. The inner turbulence of confusing values ran out of control. Her grandma could no longer manage her. The old woman died and at 13 she had to go to and live with her real mother.

After more than a year or maybe two, she showed up with her 1 ½ bags of clothes. She sobbed and cried out her pain and frustrations. She doesn’t want to be like her brother, she will continue with her studies with us. I had the chance to feel her soothing gentle massages over my head for that migraine smack. Of all the children I’ve met, she was the only one who could last 30 minutes (or more) of hand pressing over my aching head. She hasn’t changed and when I asked her to stop and rest, she said “call me again uncle…”. But she couldn’t last the bore of staying home for good. She thinks her friends and boyfriends are better options for filling the void in her. She left the next day midmorning without a message and came back home at midnight. If that is the arrangement she wants for her life, we have to let go.

Now, she is struggling to find her own niche. Will she rumble back to where she left? Will she blame us all for what we made of her? Have we tried our best to help her in her dilemna? Maybe we confused her, we hacked her breeding. Maybe not, pat my back … ask her mother…