TO HIDE MY IDENTITY:
European country - instead of the specific country
Asian country - instead of my mother’s specific country
I didn’t like to admit it. I wanted to be normal for so long, but now, I realize that my upbringing is a fucked up result of my grandmother’s conception with my grandfather.
I was born on a wealthy European country from my Asian mother and European father.
Ever since I was young, my grandmother had a huge control on my upbringing. Which school, we were to go to. What kind of habits and hobbies, we were to have. Down to eating food, she would be unnecessarily strict pointing to a certain way of eating, a tempo. She would also emphasize unnecessarily to intellectual activities, both admiring and hating them. She would read to me books and was very fond of me. She thought I was special. She was a talkative person and talked extensively about her side of the family. I knew almost everything there is to know about her side of the family, apart from one thing, my grandfather.
However, for some reason, after 5 years, we had to move back to live with my mother’s family. My mother was overprotective, almost paranoid. She was poor but with the help of my father, we had good economy back in Asia. I was not allowed to hang out with friends as a young person, and if I were to hang out, I must send her messages immediately.
In this period of living with my mother, I always had in the back of my mind to go back to my country.
“You can decide when you turn 18,” that sentence hung on me as young 8 year old. I wanted to live back to my country. I didn’t understand why, I had to trust my parents. At that point, my language development turned on his head. From speaking my European language, I had to adjust to a completely different Asian language in addition to learning English in an international school.
That feeling in my body, something in me, said that I needed to prove something. I needed to do something important.
Bits and pieces of my grandfather was learned through achievement.
He was very good at mathematics, said my mother as I achieved exceptional grades. These strengthened the feelings in me to achieve, to learn more as to learn more about my family. It was like a puzzle.
So, over the course of 9 years, I achieved phenomenal grades (which my mother would send to my father and which he consequently would share with my grandmother). This continued until the last year when suddenly I was at the crossroads of going back to my country or being a doctor at the Asian country. But that feeling, that feeling of missing some piece in my history lingered in my body.
My grandmother called.
She said one thing “you must learn the European language and come back here. I would be very proud”.
And so, I did. At this point, I knew three languages fluently. In addition, I learned some basic Russian (reading and writing) and Latin.
We went back home again.
It struck me. Out of sheer coincidence, the same books that I read back at my mother’s country were standing in my grandmother’s bookshelves. Books on psychology, war, crime, and classical literature at home were there. I fixed the things I needed to fix to get in the same university as my grandfather.
“They’re their own race,” my grandmother would say looking at me smilingly. I hated it. She hated immigrants and was far right.
Then it came, I wanted to get in the military and be an officer for some reason, to prove something. My grandmother had no reaction but was awfully quiet. My father however, was enthusiastic and supportive. I trained and passed the minimum physical tests to be an officer, however was not able to march for long enough time. I was devasted and angry.
Upon hearing what I experienced under the military, my grandmother became psychotic. Calling all people in the militaries as nothing but delusional people with power fantasies. She would speak and show books at me showing its faults. She would go away the living room. She talked, for the first time, in a way that was not familiar.
“Everyone in the military, just want to show how good they are and not actually help,” she said furiously
We argued. I began to hate her. It was then I finally asked her.
“What is the name of my grandfather,” an awfully harmless question given the fact that she would share everything about the family history of everyone in her side of the tree, but then, when it came to this question, something about it, was very hard to ask.
She said it.
”******”.
“We don’t talk about him.”
I searched for it online.
I found an ancestor tree with almost 10 000 near relatives. It was awfully well-documented.
My grandfather died at 36, being “apparently very good at mathematics” as a student or professor, idk much.
My great-grandfather was a lieutenant colonel, special operations executive. He fought against nazis and arabs. His service was declassified in 2022. Further, 2014, his service in Britain was declassified and stored in the national archives.