Heavier Than Hate

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I was at the office when I got a call that he was having another mental breakdown. I rushed to the bathroom to find some privacy. He had been spitting words for hours. Kill, pray, church. Fragments strung together by a mind unraveling. I watched him through a video call he did not know I had joined. His flight of thoughts was like my memory of him—disjointed, desperate.

I thought about his place in my life (a place I was forced to give). He was the one who taught me that emotions could suffocate someone. That they could hollow out a part of my heart that even time couldn’t fill.

They called to tell me he needed my help. For a few minutes, I ignored the voice of the caller who was asking me if I could go home and help him. I looked at him. I was not even scared. What did I even feel? From my memory, I could not recall exactly, except that I tried as much to keep my lips from curving into a smile. And I felt coldness rise from my chest to my head that said, poetic justice.

During a conversation with my cousin outside the psychiatric ward days later, I told her I was just doing this out of obligation. That I was just there because I wanted him to get better to make sure our brother who was also recovering from his own disjointed thoughts and our nephews would be safe at home. She said that even though my mind insisted I didn't care, my heart still did. I laughed and told her both come from the brain. Emotions, memories... everything processed and manifested by the same organ. And the small part of my brain, the one that stores memory, knew how deep it’s buried in my body. Hate wasn’t just a word. Hate lived in the stomach. My therapist called it somatic.

Some nights, I would make a space comfortable outside the ward and open my review materials. I was studying for a board exam meant to measure my understanding of mental disorders, of how they came to be. From time to time, I would throw a glimpse inside. Inside the ward, that looked like a cell with its iron bar doors, the one that caused mine slept. And probably his was caused by our parents. And my parents’ by theirs.

And no matter how well the books could explain it, they could never fathom the weight of it all.

That forgiveness was heavier than hate.