Guilt is a very powerful feeling and one that is truly intrinsic. No one can really make you feel guilty about something you don't feel warrants it, yet when we feel it, it can consume us.
"Eat your food. There are children in the world going hungry". To which I would always wonder to myself how my eating, helped them? So I cleared my plate and gained weight. Again- how did that help those children? Were they not still hungry?
Guilt. What is it good for? Ab-so-lute-ly nothing! YEAH! ...Or is it?
Now, years on, I find myself inflicting it on myself, and we Armenians are so skilled at it. I go see my mother, I get upset at her condition- not that there is anything wrong with it! She is in a good place. I leave upset. I sit in my car and cry, or sob or sniffle, or just sit there like a zombie wondering what happened to her and why, and I come home in a shit mood having accomplished nothing at home and nothing of note at the nursing home. BUT! When I don't go, I feel guilty that she is there alone and spend a good portion of my time wondering what she is doing, and feel shit and don't accomplish much (other than blogging) and cry, sniffle and sit around like a zombie. Guilt drives me back there, far more often than I have time for and I likely keep her from gelling with the residents- not that there is much there to gel with!
And it isn't just me! Robert, her long-time companion goes daily, drives her around, takes her for tea, ice cream, lunch, what have you, all the while leaving an apartment full of memories we are slowly dismantling, packing, giving to charity, selling and otherwise dividing up among us. Taking apart someone's life while they are still alive is a unique kind of guilt, telling them they cannot return to the home they constantly ask for, a special kind of torture.
My grandfather built his own home. My mother was either very young at the time or not even born, I don't know exactly. He built it when there was no one in that area, but by the time I was born, it had filled in and become a nice area to live in. He had welled his own water, which was in the front courtyard, and designed it exactly how he liked it. The garden that was across from the bedroom windows had all kinds of fruit trees; cherries; sweet and sour, pears, persimmons, mulberries, grape vines, and my favorite tree- the walnut tree, which apparently was a result of a crow burying a walnut. It also had a green house, a very large veranda, and a pool, in which we all learned to swim, and I nearly drowned in.
I have so many amazing memories of that house that knowing the new owner demolished it and built an apartment block, filling in the pool an cutting down the trees, nearly broke my heart. I know it killed my grandfather. I think he felt like a chapter of his life had closed, and all the moments, the families and pets who were raised in the walls of the garden were just memories now. Maybe he felt guilty that he gave up on the house, and that no one could return there. I think I know how he feels. Mom keeps saying Let's go to our house, let's go to OUR house. And she would say it when she was in her condo as well! Mama jan, do you mean this house? I wish I could take you back there, sit under the mulberry tree and shake it until the ripe ones fell in our laps, staining our clothes. That house is long gone now, the trees torn out of their roots, the grafted multi-colour rose bushes turned to dust, like the gardener who grafted them. I wish we could go back there, where the fondest of my childhood memories still float, before the revolution tore apart the country and our family. But we can't. It doesn't exist, and that's that. No point feeling guilty about it. Hah! Easier said than done!
"Eat your food. There are children in the world going hungry". To which I would always wonder to myself how my eating, helped them? So I cleared my plate and gained weight. Again- how did that help those children? Were they not still hungry?
Guilt. What is it good for? Ab-so-lute-ly nothing! YEAH! ...Or is it?
Now, years on, I find myself inflicting it on myself, and we Armenians are so skilled at it. I go see my mother, I get upset at her condition- not that there is anything wrong with it! She is in a good place. I leave upset. I sit in my car and cry, or sob or sniffle, or just sit there like a zombie wondering what happened to her and why, and I come home in a shit mood having accomplished nothing at home and nothing of note at the nursing home. BUT! When I don't go, I feel guilty that she is there alone and spend a good portion of my time wondering what she is doing, and feel shit and don't accomplish much (other than blogging) and cry, sniffle and sit around like a zombie. Guilt drives me back there, far more often than I have time for and I likely keep her from gelling with the residents- not that there is much there to gel with!
And it isn't just me! Robert, her long-time companion goes daily, drives her around, takes her for tea, ice cream, lunch, what have you, all the while leaving an apartment full of memories we are slowly dismantling, packing, giving to charity, selling and otherwise dividing up among us. Taking apart someone's life while they are still alive is a unique kind of guilt, telling them they cannot return to the home they constantly ask for, a special kind of torture.
My grandfather built his own home. My mother was either very young at the time or not even born, I don't know exactly. He built it when there was no one in that area, but by the time I was born, it had filled in and become a nice area to live in. He had welled his own water, which was in the front courtyard, and designed it exactly how he liked it. The garden that was across from the bedroom windows had all kinds of fruit trees; cherries; sweet and sour, pears, persimmons, mulberries, grape vines, and my favorite tree- the walnut tree, which apparently was a result of a crow burying a walnut. It also had a green house, a very large veranda, and a pool, in which we all learned to swim, and I nearly drowned in.
I have so many amazing memories of that house that knowing the new owner demolished it and built an apartment block, filling in the pool an cutting down the trees, nearly broke my heart. I know it killed my grandfather. I think he felt like a chapter of his life had closed, and all the moments, the families and pets who were raised in the walls of the garden were just memories now. Maybe he felt guilty that he gave up on the house, and that no one could return there. I think I know how he feels. Mom keeps saying Let's go to our house, let's go to OUR house. And she would say it when she was in her condo as well! Mama jan, do you mean this house? I wish I could take you back there, sit under the mulberry tree and shake it until the ripe ones fell in our laps, staining our clothes. That house is long gone now, the trees torn out of their roots, the grafted multi-colour rose bushes turned to dust, like the gardener who grafted them. I wish we could go back there, where the fondest of my childhood memories still float, before the revolution tore apart the country and our family. But we can't. It doesn't exist, and that's that. No point feeling guilty about it. Hah! Easier said than done!
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