CLEANING OUT MY CLOSET


Today, I'm pissed!

Little Tita is 8 months old. However, if you saw her, you would think she is maybe 5 or 6... a sad baby with an empty stare. I think you can tell a lot from reading a person's eyes... the audacity, the vivacity, the intelligence... the joie de vivre... the pain, the sadness... the inventive, the inquisitiveness... the slyness... the shrewdness... your eyes are the window to your soul... but if you look deeply into Tita's eyes... you see the big vast nothing with touches of pain and loneliness...

Tita was born with a quirky reflux condition... she would efficiently vomit anything she drank or ate... to complicate matters, her mother's milk seemed to be pretty much 100% fat free so it did not help her at all... when her parents took her to the ped for her 1 month check-up, they discovered, in panic, that instead of gaining weight, she had reduced her birth weight... which is a red flag to say the least.

Since then, Tita has recovered somewhat... she is still pretty much behind where she should be at this age, but at least she's no longer in dire straits... however...

Her mum is a working mum... so, during the day Tita stays Monday through Wednesday at Grandma #1's and Thursdays and Fridays at Grandma #2's... on Tuesday and Thursday evening, her parents teach Cathesism all night long... so on Tuesday mornings she is dropped at Grandma #1's early in the morning and she is not picked up until Wednesday evening. On Thursday morning she is dropped at Grandma #2's early in the morning and she is not picked up until Friday evening. On those days when Tita does not spend the night at either Grandma's house, her mum gets her to sleep at 6 pm... just about 30 minutes after she arrives home... Tita, I'm told, sleeps pretty much till the next morning.

Last weekend, Tita's parents had to attend a spiritual retreat from Friday to Sunday... so Tita spent the entire weekend at Grandma #2's... which means that her mum only spend about 1 hour with her daughter that week. The funny thing is that Tita's dad is currently unemployed... but taking her of her daughter interferes with his busy schedule of couch potatoing, so off to grandma's she goes...

I was mad as hell and couldn't take it any more!

"God has given us so much that we need to give something back".. her mum told me... well, missy... you might win the going-to-church award but you will never with the mother of year award... and I wonder if God values a person that goes to church, teaches cathesism and attends spiritual retreats but neglects her own kid!.... Got slapped in the face for that one... but, lemme tell ya, it felt good!

I just don't want to run into Tita a few years from now... dedicating John Lennon's "Mother" to her hum on mother's day... "Mother you had me but I never had you"... or worse... a heart-felt rendition of the Eminem hit that titles this blog.