Tearing at the seams

It took me about this long for me to finally understand the state of my family circumstances, both financial-wise and relationship-wise. Meals with my mum are always heartwarming yet hard to come by. During which, our conversations can go from 'funny', when it comes to her encounters with queer customers, to 'heartfelt' when it comes to her deepest darkest secrets that even I do not know of. And it never fails to pain me when during this time, I am able to scrutinise her face and notice the depth of her wrinkles, dark eye-circles and eyebags, and truth be told, the tears welling up in her tired eyes, all from the stress and fatigue that has built up from her single-handedly holding this family together. I then proceed to blaming and hating myself for not being able to support her financially and mentally, then my dad for sitting on his ass ever since retirement though ironically, my soft-hearted love for my dad was the reason I stopped my mum from getting a divorce about a month ago.

Our meal together today finally let me gained complete realisation of how noble my mum really is, how strong she is in all aspects mental and physical. And after having known so much, too much actually, just like my mum I now have to sharpen my ability of putting up a strong front. For the many emotional nights to come, I'll have to make do with letting out full-blown sobs behind closed doors just like right now. For when it all comes apart starting from my mum, that'll truly mark the end of us and then, not even love nor blood-ties will be able to keep this family from crumbling like pastries.