My mother's greatest fear

My mother’s greatest fear is that I will betray our family secrets and tour the world imitating her accent to make strangers laugh, like dat Korean girl, dat Cho. I tell her not to worry, because I already do this with practically everyone I meet. Whenever I feel obligated to perform, which is to say whenever I am in a social situation, I find myself channeling my mother. Imelda, known as “Mel” to her friends, is joy personified: laughing black eyes, red lipstick and silly jokes. With mock sternness and a wagging finger she delivers her favorite introduction, “My name is Imelda, but I am not the one who collects shoes!” followed by infectious giggles. Leave her on a park bench with a stranger for ten minutes and you’ll come back to find the two of them laughing like old friends.

But there are other sides to my mother. She has an alternate personality, and a hidden past. She hates it when I tell people that she wasn’t always this babushka wearing, lawn mower riding, food network watching and gardening wonder, that in fact she was once a doctor. We’ll be talking and out of nowhere she will suddenly become very serious and say, “Your friend never progressed past the anal stage.” Therefore I have dubbed her “Super Secret Psychiatrist Mommy.”

In fact, both my parents are psychiatrists. Every time I tell someone this, I get a reaction somewhere between pity and awe, with a little fear mixed in. Maybe this is similar to the reaction the children of serial killers get. ‘Wow, how much did that fuck you up,’ their eyes seem to say as they laugh nervously. ‘It’s really great you’re able to function in public without pissing yourself. Don’t get up - I’m just going to go put away the sharp implements.’

My mother retired from psychiatry when I was a toddler, and never talked shop at home much. She mostly acts the exact opposite you’d expect of a psychiatrist. She is suspicious of everyone outside our family to the point of paranoia. When I tell her I’m having a dinner party for a few close friends I’ve known for years, she tells me to hide my valuables. And she is vicious in her thirst for vengeance. Whenever I came home crying because someone made fun of me on the bus, there was no recitation of the golden rule, no “Kids will be kids,” or “They’re just jealous, just ignore them.” No, my mother was the kind of person who shouted, “Kill them all!” at the television, and often advised me to kick boys in their “safety deposit boxes.”

So when I told her of the kids who tormented me, she responded, “Fight!” She tried her best to coach me towards violence. She balled her hands into fists and shouted, “You must fight dem, dahling!”

But I was not growing up in the mean streets of South Philly. This was snow white suburban Emmaus, Pennsylvania, with a few Chinese kids thrown in for pizzazz. Needless to say I was the only half Filipina half Iranian girl at school. I had no homeys to back my shit up.

Although physical violence was an awkward and decidedly unpopular mode of dealing with playground conflicts in my world, especially for girls, with my mother’s constant encouragement, I decided to give it a try.

My first attempt at violent retribution took place in the first grade. A boy named Wayne Stevens kicked my book bag out of line for the bus, and outraged, I impulsively swung my Holly Hobbie lunch box (which I still have and cherish) into his head. Specifically, I did a 360 degree turn and whaled him in the face with it. I am one of the reasons why lunch boxes for children are no longer made from metal. From that moment on, I forever carried with me the vision of blonde, blue-eyed, peaches and cream Wayne, his lip bloodied and eyes wide with shock and pain, spitting, as if in slow motion, long, gooey strands of blood and saliva, and finally spewing a tooth onto the grass.

The guilt I felt was enormous. I was a ball of nerves. It was the crime of the century at Shoemaker Elementary. Wayne was popular. I was not yet an untouchable but well on my way. I couldn’t bring myself to go to school the next day; I spent the day in bed feeling like a terrible and dangerous little girl. I couldn’t show my murderous face to my classmates, who would surely shun me in the halls and stone me at recess.

My mother, however, felt no guilt, no sense of responsibility, not a jot of concern for the boy (who lost his tooth and needed a stitch in his lip). “Oh-loh-koh,” she crowed when I told her what happened, the same way she did at every movie when the bad guy got his due. I am not sure of the exact meaning, but I think it is similar to her other favorite saying which is, “An eye for an eye!”

My mother has always showed me what it is to be tough, almost to a fault. She rarely cries, seldom apologizes and never forgives. As her father wasn’t aware of the etymology of her name, I think it is a cosmic coincidence that he chose “Imelda” which is of Germanic origin and means “warrior.” Her first instinct in a bad situation is not to cry or look for help, but to fight. Her voice is her main weapon. Despite her asthma, she has a voice so loud she can out shout any man, woman or beast. Apparently she hid this side of herself completely from my father until he married her, after which he said she became a whole other person.

He likes to bring this point home by telling the story of how his pretty, new bride dealt with a large black bird that got caught in the basement of his father’s house in Tehran. While my father and his brother helplessly shouted and flapped their arms, panicked, my mother calmly picked up an umbrella. As the men looked on in shocked silence, my mother literally speared the bird through the chest. At this point, my Uncle Parvis, horrified, turned to my father and said, “Houshang, you married a barbarian!”

On the extraordinarily rare occasions on which my mother does cry, or at least makes crying noises, my sister and I have to suppress the cruel urge to laugh. It seems really mean, but it’s an involuntary reaction to watching someone so brutal and hardened actually feeling sorry enough to cry. This is a person who wrote nasty letters to a woman fighting cancer. This woman was her sister. Her grudges are legendary. Her memory for slights is epic. She cuts people off like other people trim their nails. And as she’s getting older she’s losing any inclination to hold back, and has taken to heckling strangers. Once a man with a potbelly walked by her and she shouted, “Hey! When are you due?”

But how can you stay mad at a little Filipina shaped like an apple with an ass as flat as a pancake, red lipstick on pursed lips, glittering black eyes that catch every price that rings up on the register, and a kerchief protecting her newly permed hair. I credit my mother for teaching me to expect the worst from people, to mistrust their motives, to watch my money, to nag relentlessly when I feel helpless, and to threaten and cajole the ones I love into compliance. My mother loves me the way a wild gorilla loves her baby. She would kill anyone who tried to harm me, or anyone who would try and come between us.