My Childhood Wounds
After turning 60, people begin to re-examine their life story: their parents, childhood,
marriage, children, work, and choices. Old memories and feelings return, not to hurt, but to be
seen, understood, and eventually healed.
You stop craving new titles, houses, cars, or phones. Instead, you want silence and peace, and
you appreciate the simple beauty of existence. This is a time to let go of the past, open your
inner drawers, discard old fears, speak the truth, and forgive those who never learned how to
love.
Looking back, we finally see ourselves without masks, without makeup, and without lies.
My mother was a math teacher who wasted her life.
I respect her greatly; however, honestly, if she had lived in Canada, her actions might have
attracted the attention of authorities. She beat me from the time I was three. I was a
hyperactive, cheerful child, while she was deeply frustrated. I liked her, but I was also afraid
of her.
I remember I was 7 years old when a metal goalpost in the schoolyard fell on my head. I almost
died that day; my forehead was broken. Somebody took me to the hospital. I was lying on the
surgical bed when my father and mother came; I was still covered in blood when I said to my
mother, "Do not beat me; I was just playing."
My mother loved math problems, libraries, books, concerts, and long walks on city streets;
somehow, she liked aristocracy and the city. She hated villages and people with short nails.
As far as I know, she was sick, and she was treated for angina pectoris and other heart
problems. She destroyed her liver with too many painkillers and other pills; she got liver
autoimmune disease and then cirrhosis. She died of liver cancer.
My father was ashamed of me.
I escaped the worst things in my childhood by playing basketball. I was talented in basketball,
but I was a skinny kid. In my high school, I was 190 cm (6'2") tall but weighed only 70 kg (150
pounds). My father never came to see any of the basketball games I played, he never took me
outside, and he never walked with me anywhere.
My father was an attractive man who charmed women. He cheated on my mother, and at the same
time, he was so jealous of her. My mother felt it; she argued with him, and they did not talk to
each other for many days.
The day I was leaving for Canada, I had a conversation with my father. He told me seriously,
"You are leaving; who will take care of me when I get old?" At that time, my daughter was 8
months old, we had only borrowed money to begin our new life 10,000 km away, and my father was
contemplating his old age.
Later, I rejected his inheritance in my sister's name. Now, I have nothing back home; I think I
will never ever visit my hometown again.
I've spent most of my life living for others: my partners, my daughter, my parents, work, and
social duties. Now, there is a space, and it is in this space that my soul is waking up. It no
longer wants to be useful; it wants to be real.
Old memories may return with enormous force. This isn't just nostalgia; it's the soul healing
the wounds. It wants to understand what still hurts, what remains unanswered. For that, it calls
for silence.
I am going to be who I am at last, and without fear. I'm letting go of old versions of myself,
of stories others told about me, and of the need to be useful, productive, or perfect.
I understand that who I am now came from the my childhood
I do not blame my mother for her ignorance, and I don't condemn you for your failure to
understand things as they are. Truth is wonderful but terrifying.
