The way we go

Of all the stories Ma told me when I was young, I remember most vividly the one about the young man to be hanged. It was not dark and it was not tragic but it was pointless in its point then, as the culprit was not the boy’s bad deeds but his mother’s inability to stop him when he did wrong. Ma went on and on, upping the magnitude of the boy’s crimes, as he grew older.

Since then, I have often thought about the boy. Because as I think, as I have thought over the years, I want to tell Ma, and one day my kid, another story about two brothers who had a drunkard father. One brother adopted the father’s ills, spiteful and angry at fate for giving him such a parent; the other brother however, aspired to learn from his father’s example and be a better person.

The two stories have often baffled me for no reason. They have come back in the most trying of times and most placid moments. They are my deepest source of strength when everything else fails me. And they have come back to me, as I fight back tears and a lump in my heart, for no reason.