Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

-Kahlil Gibran.


They often say that a boy's best friend is his mother. Truly, I wonder....
I never really understood that expression. I mean, I could never ever really talk to my mother. Not that we never talked, just that I can't talk to her about myself, my dreams...things that mattered.

As I sat down trying to understand why this came to be, I failed. Because...
My mother and I never seemed to see things eye to eye. Even as a child I rejected her reasoning and intricate logic of what is. Maybe perhaps, she never took me seriously. You know how mothers baby-talk their kids affectionately, protecting their children from the brunt of the ugly truth. I resent that. I've always wanted answers that reason. And perhaps that was why I was considered a difficult child to raise. Unlike my late father, who spoke and treated me more seriously. He doesn't talk down to me or hide me from the truth. I appreciated that. I guess he taught me critical thinking at an early age.

I always do not agree with my mother though sometimes what she does say makes sense. I remembered one time that this eccentricity of mine got so bad that I refused to have a slightest discussion with her. If a conversation steered into an argument, I'd stop. I thought to myself that I'd only give her grief if she'd hear my thoughts out loud. So, I just stop. I chose to take a different approach to all this. And inevitably, I was misunderstood.

I love my mother but sometimes mothers drives you crazy. I do not wish to lie to her so I kept to myself. Until tonight. I told her of my plans and why I had chosen the life I led. There were many expression that glazed in her eyes and her tired face revealed lines of sacrifice which, I am eternally grateful for. But, whatever mothers and sons, or of what she dreams of me could never be mine. Nor, mine can ever be her's.

Yet, I am her son and only that in the end I could be.