The Day I (Metaphorically) Exploded
In which Teófilo explains the event that became a thorn in his flesh until this day.
After Mom’s surgery, what was left of my junior high school year passed in a blur and I found myself a Senior in the fall of 1982. Mercie and I spent the prior summer attending an “advanced” pre-calculus course Mr. Echevarría offered to those interested, and we signed up. I loved math and it gave us another excuse to hang out together. We also worked a stint at a summer job with the municipality, sweeping and cleansing our general neighborhoods every morning for a month. Papi had moved to his other house full time, the one he shared with Esperanza by mutual support agreement. Mom, my little brother and I were left on our own in the house.
Mom continued to apply psychological and physical pressure on me to force me into breaking my relationship with my Mercie. She tried to induce great guilt upon me for my lack of consideration to her “delicate” condition. She tried to enlist two relatives in Washington State to entice me into applying to Washington State University in Seattle. They didn’t fall for it and though I considered the idea, I couldn’t think of leaving my Mercie.
Then, Mom alleged Doña Elba was a witch with connections to santerîa and by implication, my Mercie was a santera-witch too. Doña Elba wasn’t a churchgoer, but every morning she would awake by dawn to pray the rosary and her intercessions were quite universal. She had a prayer corner with various saints — notably, St. Lazarus, whom I considered the patron saint of all those who are living a miserable life. Her devotions were simple and steeped on popular religion, but she was no santera. Neither was my Mercie and this I knew from direct observation and experiential knowledge. Mom, however, disregarded my experience and attempted to gaslight me into her bleak opinion to no avail.
Thanks to my Mercie Dad and I had reached a detente and the beginnings of a mutual understanding that later evolved into a good relationship. But one day Mom, to prove a point that got lost in me, ripped the envelope containing the $50 a month Dad sent me as allowance. Mercie and I told Dad to send the money to Mercie’s postal office box from that moment on.
Ties were fraying between Mom and I. The anger and frustration I’ve been keeping for over a decade was increasing and simmering within me. My fury was in a countdown mode. An explosion was near.
Bang!
It came early one school morning. I don’t recall any more what’d triggered it. I do remember that Mom said “You’re angry. What did Mercie do to you?” Mom then proceeded to call her. Mercie answered, and Mom started demanding an explanation from her for my “anger.” I knew Mom was going to command Mercie to leave me alone and me to break it off.
I saw red. I had tunnel vision. I exploded with all my decade-long, pent-up fury. I screamed at Mom “It’s not her, it’s you. You are the reason for my anger. You are the cause of my rage.” I grabbed the phone line from the back of the phone and ripped it from the wall.
Mom proceded to scream at me but for the first time in our lives I outshouted her. I told her I hated her hatreds, her harebrained suspicions and conspiracy theories about this that and the other. I cursed all her hatreds and lies. She kept trying to threaten and scream but to no avail. I was a force of nature.
I walked to my room and locked myself in. But Mom didn’t stop. Her wounded pride didn’t allow her to acknowledge being defeated by me. She grabbed a broomstick and began hitting the door with it, demanding I get out. And I did, pushing her against the wall and, wrenching the broomstick from her hands, I threw it away. As I pressed her against the wall I told her in no uncertain terms: “Today’s the last day you even threaten to touch me. No more.” She then called attention to a police patrol car that’d just parked in front of the house, no doubt called by some worried neighbor who’d heard the commotion.
I unpinned from her and let her go. She got dressed for work and left in a teary hurry. I didn’t go to school.
The explosion had immediate repercussions. Somehow the school Director caught news about the event — whether Mom went straight to the school or my neighboring schoolmates let the Director know, I have no idea. The Director called my Mercie to obtain information and Mercie told her what she knew. The Director, Mrs. Reyes, whom you might remember had been my kindergarten teacher almost 13 years before, reached her own conclusions. The school’s oversight of Mercie and me began to loosen and then disappeared the next spring when we both reached 18 years of age.
Mom returned from work that afternoon. I was still in my room. She talked to me but I answered in single syllable words or short phrases, my anger still smoldering . She said “Te tengo miedo” (“I’m afraid of you”). She said so to guilt me into compliance. I was onto her. It didn’t work. “You are?” I replied. “Good.”
My Thorn in the Flesh
To this day every time I remember that day I revive it with the same intensity of a soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The same extreme rage, pain, sorrow, shame, and guilt invade my inner self and my hands congeal into fighting fists. I’m still holding on to that pain and rage that once subsumed my childhood and early manhood years. It’s been the hardest self-mastery challenge I’ve ever faced. It’s my very own thorn in the flesh (cfr. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
Before I explain the reason why God has given me this thorn in the flesh I want to impress upon readers than in no way I see myself as an equal to St. Paul the Apostle, but he and I seem to have something in common at least in this instance: St. Paul had had wondrous spiritual revelations; I’d had a life-changing spiritual experience. God had inflicted St. Paul this thorn to keep him humble and dependent on Him. In a similar way, God inflicted - and continues to inflict me - with my own thorn so that the wondrous graces He’s given don’t go all to my head.
The nature of my thorn was this: the fissures I had in my personality from my upbringing and that were in the process of healing reopened. The pain, the confusion, and my aroused passions created a kind of “interference” or “static pattern” that obscured my experience of God.
“How can I be holy when I acted and felt this way?” I asked and continue to ask myself. “Have I truly forgiven her? Have I truly forgiven myself?” I know God forgives me, but the lack of forgiveness elsewhere stops me from healing. There I still stand.
I’m grateful the Lord made of me the Absolutely Immovable Object to Mom’s Absolutely Irresistible Force. But, one doesn’t get out from the resulting explosion unscathed. Later in life, when one’s true self is emerging from the cocoon of surface pretense, the old wounds once believed healed burst forth anew, crying for healing.
A moment of great consequence
The immediate consequences from this even led me into a radical uprooting. The warm feelings of home and love most feel at the word mother disappeared from my heart in a flash. I loved my mother, yes, but that’s because loving is an act of the will, not of one’s feelings. From then on, my love for Mom has lacked warmth and became purely intellectual, actioning my will, yes, but nothing beyond it.
At home I stopped doing all my chores. I would leave in the morning without eating breakfast, walked to Mercie’s and continued on to school with her. We became even more inseparable.
I moved significant portions of my clothing to Mercie’s place. I would change there, helped around the house, did homework, kissed her a lot, had dinner, and would leave to my house at night. On weekends I would leave as early as possible. I just couldn’t stand my Mom and loathed being even within her general vicinity.
My rupture with Mom also brought me greater freedom. I no longer avoided family reunions and get-togethers. I shed her hatreds and chose to love other relatives and friends with no reference to Mom’s wishes and blacklists. I wasn’t emancipated yet - though I wished to be - and I was pretty much on my own.
Mom never abused me physically from that day onward, but her psychological abuse of double entendres and verbal violence continued on until the day I left the house forever. In fact, her evil attacks will be the reason I left the house.
Just one music video.
I apologize for the song’s profanity. I guess some feelings should be stated, raw.