Letter from a mother to her teenage son

My darling son,

 I have been thinking for some time now to write you a letter. Well, I finally got round to it.

You are a talented clever young boy with so much potential and I'm sure you will surprise all of us.  I am sorry that your English grades were not as high as you had expected, but please just ask and accept our help.  You are lucky enough to have two parents who love English and are quite good at the subject.  Don't take us for granted.  Use us.  Use your teachers.  Listen.  Read.

Videos are great but they can’t help your writing.  You need to see the words, to see the sentence structures and to see and appreciate (or not) the various styles of different writers, different genres, different epochs.  Then you can mature not only as an English language user but as a human, an intelligent being who has critical thought and infinite imagination.

 I am so proud of you.  Proud of everything you have accomplished so far.  I love your artworks; who would have thought that you would love art so much…   I do hope you continue to create throughout your life.  Create, my love. 

 You did very well in your science subjects despite your limited study time at home this year.  I'm just pleased you pulled yourself together during your exams.  I am also thankful, and you should be too, for your sister just sitting opposite you every day while revising, helping you with queries trivial or not.  But she will take her own path this year so you will have to rely on yourself more, my love.   Rely on us too.  Tell us what you need.   Tell us how we can help you achieve your dreams, how we can help you become the future You, the one who will command your life and stir the tiller of your life’s course.

Dream.  I love hearing you talk about your dreams.  I am certain you will find your way. Just take one step at a time.

Finally, do not let the tech companies turn you into a statistic.  You are in charge of your phone and your computer not the other way around.  Put boundaries.  Realize when they interfere with Your becoming Somebody.  The tech at present is there mainly to distract you, to entertain you, to waste your time.  Decide the level of interference to your goals, to your dreams that you allow.  Do not become a mere teenager with no willpower.  Rise.  Undaunted, dictate your terms.  Don’t become a doormat for someone else’s success. 

You are too precious, too clever, too unique to let your mind lay idle.  Be responsible.  Remember it is our actions, not our words, that show our character, our true worth.  Have respect for yourself, first of all, and also for others.  Avoid being arrogant when you can.  Choose confidence instead.  Decide what you want to do and start doing it.  Do it properly.  Whatever that may be, from making your bed to studying maths, give it all you got.  Be proud of the effort you put into it.  It will show; it always does.

Smile, laugh, live at the moment.  You are so young.  Look after and be kind to your friends.  It takes effort, I know, but life is sweeter with friends, my love.

I hope I haven’t tired you too much.  I love you with all my heart, all of us do.  You are treasured.  Don’t you ever forget that.  You have a family that loves you no matter what.  Be present.  Learn.  Dream.  Set goals.  Achieve.  Be proud of yourself.  Be confident.

                                 I love you forever and ever and ever.

                                                                           Your mother

He (II)

Religion is a funny thing.  The people that would like to see themselves as pious and firm believers are often the ones exhibiting lack of compassion for the person in need next to them.  I mean bigotry, hypocrisy and prejudice is nothing new to religion, but it still surprises me when I witness it.

I remember one occasion years ago now.  We had taken my brother to the seaside for a swim and we were just getting out of the car.  The place was crowded since the temperature was in the high thirties Celsius.  My sister and I were holding my brother, one from each side, to get him to the sea. 

But let me go back a bit.  After the accident, my brother couldn’t really run anymore and his activity was limited to sitting on a chair in our kitchen listening to the radio and watching my mum cook.   Life went on for us kids, with more lessons and private tutorials preparing for the university entry exams; we were teenagers now and the sense of one’s self prevailed all else.   So my brother and his needs were moved to the background.  I mean, after all he didn’t complain and that was that.  His health started deteriorating and he seemed to get sick more often now.  But lucky for us, we did not live far from the sea.

The sea possesses healing powers for the body and the soul so taking my brother to the water was natural.  The three of us, me, my brother and my little sister are at the beach walking hand in hand. Strange looks are flying around now from bathers that are not only superstitious but also curious about what they are seeing.  A mentally handicapped person out of the house?  Not hidden away? What about the onlookers’ unease and discomfort?  What is going on?

Reality check.  Here was someone completely different from them and alien to their microcosm.  The hands went up covering their mouths while talking to the person next to them, fingers pointed, and some of them, the stronger practicing Christian ones, even started crossing themselves.  In the Orthodox faith, you make the sign of the cross when you experience something unbelievable, something only god could comprehend.  Really?  That was my reaction.  Really?  Are you, ignorant simpletons,  afraid you might ‘catch’ handicapness, so you are quick to get god on your side?   My mother would probably disagree with my interpretation of their actions, being very religious herself and thinking the best of people, but I was not convinced.  Taking my brother out turned into a staring contest which led to his longer confinement to the house itself.  If you are not seen, you don’t really exist.

Ignorance, lack of education and an absent state have all played their role.

But I do not accept that as an excuse. 

We are all thinking human beings, so why don’t we act like it then? 

He

                                                               
                                                                     
   
           It's my brother's birthday today.  He's middle-aged and gray now.  He should be independent, having his own life, standing on his own two feet.  But he isn't.  My brother is mentally handicapped, retarded as they used to call these cases not too long ago; many still do.  I love my brother very much even though I am not really a part of his life anymore; haven't been for a long time now.  Feeling guilty; yeah, still feeling guilty about that.  My mum is the Atlas of the family.  Her spine has been curved unnaturally because of that.  Trying to lift my brother off the floor when he falls, when he passes out, when he's unwilling, even unable to move, or help her lift him.

My brother.
My brother.

I don't see where the 'my' comes in.  I'm not doing anything towards his care anymore.  Is he still 'my' brother?  Has society imposed those possessive pronouns on us or do they actually mean something?

My brother loved to run.  He would always run towards the gate of the house/ any house and head for the road, the cars, danger.
We were responsible for watching him, looking after him, protecting him from himself.  Parents too busy working, working, working.  Not their fault really; poverty dictates different laws on its citizens.
I must have been around twelve.  We were staying at our grandparents' farmhouse.  My grandpa used to have a good-natured donkey to get to his fields.  That donkey was our entertainment.  Pappou would put us on it and take us for rides.  I thought my brother would enjoy going for a ride, too.  Why not?  He loved rides.  I used to put him in an old, rusty wheelbarrow that was left around our yard and would push him on the dirt track next to our land.  He always laughed; he was always happy.

My brother lasted two minutes on the donkey and then he leaned towards the side and fell off.  His sense of balance had never been great, but as kids, you don't really pay attention to little details like that.  'Things could be different this time,' had crossed my mind.
My mum had to be called off the fields to take my brother to hospital.  She was not happy.  Maybe the leg was not broken after all, I thought.  I mean, my brother was not crying, or yelling, or anything.  Maybe he just fell, but everything was OK, anyway.

No.  The leg got cold and my brother was in agony; I could see that.  I could see that something had gone very wrong.
The grandparents could not be held responsible for the incident.  They were just grandparents --what did they know anyway?  They didn't live with him every day; they didn't really know him.
I was the one that was in charge; I should have known.  I should have known better.

Now I know.  I know better.
My brother was in full body cast for nine months.  The leg was indeed broken in three places.  As a result, his knee was left permanently bent just a little.
He could not run fast after that, despite the physiotherapy.  He stopped running altogether not long after.

And then it happened.
                                                                                 (to be continued)

Mondays...

A Monday is the day that normally we plan to do things right, properly; it's a new week, a new start.  Therefore, on Mondays I will post a Short Story link so you can familiarize yourselves with the form of the Short Story (which I absolutely adore) and also get to know writers that you might not be familiar with.  It also gives me the excuse to read more Short Stories or go back to the ones I love.  On this November Monday, we will pay tribute to an absolute master of the form, the recent Nobel Prize Winner, Canadian author Alice Munro.  The story appeared on The New Yorker on September, 2008.  It is called 'Face' and this is the opening paragraph:
           
       "I am convinced that my father looked at me, really saw me, only once. After that, he knew what was there.  In those days, they didn’t let fathers into the glare of the theatre where babies were born, or into the room where the women about to give birth were stifling their cries or suffering aloud. Fathers laid eyes on the mothers only once they were cleaned up and conscious and tucked under pastel blankets in the ward or in semi-private or private rooms. My mother had a private room, as became her status in town, and it was just as well, actually, seeing the way things turned out."

When you read the full story, let me know what you thought about it...
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/09/08/face?currentPage=all

                                                                                                              Thanks for reading

Alice Munro

Alice Munro is a must for thinkers.  If you don't know anything about her, you can get a taste of her work by reading Deborah Treisman's experience on editing Munro.
 http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/editing-alice-munro
Enjoy!

wondering...

Sunday...back at work.  Still seems unbelievably strange to be going to work on  Sundays.  How do people get used to things? Do they ever get used to new situations or they just cope?  I had to explain to my students the 'Big Brother' effect.  They were shocked.  We have stopped being shocked, we accept...

I leave you with one of my favourite sculptures

Welcome to my labyrinth...🌸

Hello everyone
                        and
                                    Welcome to my Blog.

          I chose this picture of a Roman aqua-duct near my hometown, taken by a talented friend, to let us marvel at what mankind is capable of accomplishing when there are goals to be achieved. This aqua-duct is still standing almost 2,000 years later to remind us that our work can live on through time.