Beyond Parental Sin

I read about an experiment done to gauge infant chimps’ needs for maternal care and bonding in a college psychology class . The babies were exposed to “mothers” made of wires, spikes and the occasional electric shock.

Traumatized though they were by a mother-figure who hurt them, was unresponsive, and cold to the touch, the infants continued to cling needily, unable to thrive physically and emotionally but unable to let go either.

That experiment, in all its cruelty and horror, has stuck in my mind for years.

I’m not a parent, but, rather, a mostly absent and preoccupied aunt. I don’t really understand the profound love, imposition of adult will, frustration, or patience of parenting.

But by looking at my parents and at my sisters, who are both now mothers, I see a little more clearly how awesome a responsibility having a child is, how it is a nurturing that never ends, even when children grow into adulthood and move away.

Parents, especially mothers, occupy a place of honor within Islam. Heaven is said to lie under the feet of mothers, and children owe an allegiance to the mother over and above the father due to her carrying and caring for them in their utter helplessness.

Like most families, mine has its own dysfunction. Passionate Punjabi natures were always taken as an excuse to be dramatic, to induce guilt or to become angry and storm out of rooms in lieu of rational communication.

While growing up I was taught that the more excessive the outburst, the sweeter the making up and, thus, deeper the love.

There finally came a time when I could not feel someone’s love unless we both argued, broke down and cried on a frequent basis.

So the thought of returning to Pureland and having to deal with family legacies made me apprehensive on many levels. Since I planned on spending part of it here, one of my Ramadan goals was not to act upon my anger when it arose.

I didn’t think for a minute that it would not arise or that I am beyond feeling angry. But I have learned that feeding my anger is a personal choice; I can choose to nurture quietude instead.

Sometimes I think that I could be a perfect, glowing spiritual person – if I didn’t ever have to deal with other people.

Other people’s presence in the world makes it so tough to be good. People are the real test of our ethics, patience and compassion, whether it is the driver who just cut you off, the teenager who laughed as you walked by, or the telemarketer who called during dinner.

Sure dictators, serial killers, rapists and other low-lifes make us angry too but it’s the daily interactions with regular people (co-workers, pedestrians, salespeople, and neighbors) that have the ability to reset our spiritual progress to zero everyday through a lost temper or harsh words.

But family is perhaps the greatest test of all; often such unlike people are born into the same family that one wonders if the pairings are a great cosmic joke.

Many of my clan members are so different from me that I would never choose to spend time with them if it wasn’t for the fact that we share bloodlines.

If friends are the family you choose, I’ve decided that one of the major reasons for dissimilar parents, siblings, and relatives is so we learn to live with, love and have compassion for people whom we occasionally hate, often dislike, and who can wield vulnerabilities and peeves like weapons against us when wrathful.

Growing up and realizing that one’s parents are merely human, often made mistakes, were sometimes neglectful or preoccupied with their own personal problems at first made me angry enough to blame them for everything and then to run away, abroad, as far as I could get.

Eventually, I had to stop - at the California edge of the Pacific Ocean - and face myself and my history.

It’s taken a lot of time, and many thousands of miles between my family and I, to work that quick, consuming anger out of my daily tone and interactions.

But I finally moved beyond acting out from anger to the next phase, of accepting my parents’ humanity and of forgiving them for it.

My ever-calm husband, an illness that forcibly taught me patience, and an exhaustion with drama precipitated and enforced that change over the past few years.

So, in spite of my apprehension, being here I feel inoculated with a peaceful vaccine. If negative family dynamics unfold I simply choose not to participate in them.

I believe that by choosing a different path we make that a reality possible for others to participate in – we can infect each other with tranquility just as surely as we can with our rage.

When I think of my parents now I most often remember that two years ago they uprooted themselves to move to Freeland to provide support to me while I was ill. They left behind their other two children, four grandchildren, relatives, a close community, and a well-settled life for a lonelier, more austere one in a country they are strangers in just so that I might be less alone in my struggle.

On top of all that they have done for me throughout my life, this is one debt that I know I can never repay, though I am trying to, by being more gentle and patient with them and others.

Just as when we think of God we begin where He does, with those aspects He most wants us to understand about Himself - “In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate” - and which are the light in which His message is cast, I’ve begun to think of my parents beginning with love, and of all their words and actions thus being imbued with that emotion.

It’s an imperfect, human love, but love nevertheless. And giving them that benefit of the doubt has transformed the way I interact with and react to them.

For example, where first there was irritable anger at their advice, there is now often an engaged, listening patience, even if in the end I choose a different course of action from what they advised. This has helped us build mutual trust; they feel listened to and I feel cared for.

At their worst, my parents have still sacrificed for me and loved me more than I can ever imagine. It’s not about forgetting the bad times, but rather accepting the myriad colors that make up the complexities of who they are…of who we each are.

Moving beyond simplistic black or white characterizations of sin or being wronged or misunderstood is difficult, but it’s what we owe each other at the most basic spiritual level.

The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, urged us to be merciful toward each other, and to reflect and embody the mercy of our Creator toward His creation if we desired mercy from Him in this life and the next. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve often forgotten that in my interactions with my parents.

A Qur’anic verse says:

“Let them worship the Lord of this House
Who provided them against destitution
And gave them security against fear.”

(106: 3-4)

I often think about the freedom from poverty and fear that God granted the careless Arab tribe Quraish, how His role of provider, cherisher, and caretaker is partially delegated to parents in this world, and of how we as their children are often just as heedless of their generosity as we are of God's.

In Pureland, parents are considered to be the cool shade over us, the trees beneath which we rest, the fruit which nourishes us, and the seeds from which we grow to be strong – or weak.

Thus orphans are considered to be those without shade or protection, the most vulnerable members of our society.

Although when we think of orphans young children come most often to mind, when my mother lost her parents in her early 50s she was shaken by her orphanhood.

That unique relationship she had with her loving parents was at an end. The people who had in so many ways known her the best were gone. She was alone in this world, a seedling next to the fallen tree from which it sprang.

Seeing her experience that changed me. It made me realize that, if life follows its expected course, I will see my parents go before me. And whatever difficulties we’ve had, however maddening, destructive, manipulative or eccentric they’ve occasionally been, I know that I’m not ready to let them go just yet.

I need a lifetime with them just to understand this tapestry they've helped to weave within me.

I don’t know if we ever get beyond our need for our parents. Whatever combination of difficult, wonderful, psychotic, and wise yours and mine may be, most of them try their best to fulfill our bottomless need for safety, love, and satiation, even if occasionally all they can give us is wires and spikes.

My mother was away for two weeks and not expected to return till tomorrow. Hearing her unexpected voice downstairs today made my heart leap with a joy, yearning, and belonging that I will never feel for anyone else no matter how old I become. (“Mother is the name of God on every child's lips.”)

In spite of our difficulties, she and my father are still the blessed shade over my head. May they be so for long, healthy decades more, insha-Allah (God willing), ameen.