Wrath

It was just the way life was.
My first 18 years, a continuum of loving suppression and the agenda of others.
Translation: Who you think you are is irrelevant, we know best.
The age of “children should be seen and not heard”. It seemed as if every aspect of my life was controlled. I am clear my parents just wanted the best for me. My Mom wanted me to be a New York City lawyer. She had certain expectations.
To disappoint would incur her exquisite wrath.
Wrath, n. Hatred, indignation combined with the desire to punish.
Oh, make no mistake; my mother loved me, I am clear.
A mother bear. I am her first-born son.
In retrospect, I was an odd child. Positioned on the functioning end of the Asbergers spectrum. A smart rat. High IQ. Intensely curious about the natural world around me. Much of my time spent in the fantasy world of my mind. I would spend hours playing in the roots of a sweet gum tree on a red clay bank behind our 50’s contemporary box of a house in suburban Washington DC.
My fantasy world, safe and manageable.
The real world, not so much. Navigating my father’s fury, ineffectually dodging my mother’s disappointment, generally hurting and fearful. Seemingly incapable of interacting with others my age, slightly more comfortable in the company of adults.
Never able to understand what everyone else seemed to grasp so naturally about the world.
My father was an artist and art professor teaching at American University.
My social agony inherited from him. His was a case of low-grade annoyance, flaring into full-blown fury with the slightest provocation. Not so much hatred with a desire to punish, more like a lifetime of frustration resulting in anger and lashing out.
There is a 60’s era television set out there somewhere with a fire poker lodged in its shattered screen that bears mute testimony to his anger.
My mothers father, my grandfather, I knew him slightly. For me he was a kind, white haired old man. The only grandparent I ever knew. He lived in a tiny overstuffed apartment just off Broadway in New Your City. My memory is, amidst its clutter, standing in one corner, he had a real suit of armor, elsewhere a beaver skin top hat hung on a nail and, by the front door, a small dark wood cabinet crammed full of Nestles Crunch Bars, his favorite. He would share with me.
In his life as my mother’s father he was mean, angry and contentious. Things had happened when my mother was young, not the least of which was her own mother dying suddenly when my mom was 16.
Bacterial meningitis,
Fit as a fiddle on Friday, Deceased on Sunday.
Her father, an emotional train wreck, his life miserable and that misery staining the lives of those around him.
His behavior so egregious my mother and her brother, even years after his death, could not talk about him with out upset.
My mother, out of the events of her youth, grew to hate men, more exactly maleness. The irony of her having three sons is not lost on me.
Any sign of maleness or disobedience would incur her wrath.
A thick musty blanket woven from yarn made of “do not disappoint” obscured me and my life for years.
A child learns quickly how to survive.
For the wrath of a parent seems life threatening.

Wrath is a child’s emotion. A two-year old barred from getting their way is a study in wrath. You can see it in their eyes. In that furious moment willing to start world war three. Given the space to feel that wrathful emotion unjudged, it washes through them and passes quickly.
Wrath in an adult human is something else entirely. Adults, trained at a young age to hate who they are, can spend the rest of their lives punishing themselves and others.

There is a small dark oak table on a crimson rug in the middle of a dimly lit room.
The table stained dark by use and scarred by the years.
It has a round top and three slender legs.
A small clear glass bottle, filled with amber liquid, sits expectantly in the center of it. Its mouth stoppered with a cork.
In it is the antidote for wrath.
An ancient recipe made from equal parts kindness, patience, compassion and boundaries.
Infused with courage and a hint of the desire to love and understand.
There is a faded label on the bottle,
It reads “Drink me”