ESTHER: MY SINCERE APOLOGY LETTER TO MY PARENTS.
I must address a subject that I have feared and is long overdue. One that is touchy!
My purpose in writing this letter is to tell parents out there what kind of damage they do to their children KNOWINGLY or UNKNOWINGLY when they mistreat their child’s spouse and children. And what kind of damage it does to their relationship with their child and their grandchildren. I do this in the hope that I can prevent this damage from being done to someone else. It is too late for our family.
You want only the best for your children. You want them to grow into adults who are capable of making choices for themselves. This means you need to let them make those choices. This includes whom they fall in love with and decide to marry. Life is a learning experience. If they fail at something, then they will learn a lesson from that experience! You cannot shelter them and expect them to grow at the same time.
Sometimes the choices they make are not the same ones you would choose for them. They are not supposed to be your choices and you need to wish them happiness and be emotionally supportive of them. That means you do not interfere. You do not instigate, you do not demean the spouse, you do not pass right by that child’s house and go onto another child’s–play favorite’s. You give your love and you let the chips fall where they may. The danger is; nowadays should parents force daughters/sons to marry persons against their wishes..they’ll marry to please both their parents, society and church. But in turn, out of wedlock misconducts begin. Because it leads the victims jump off their parents’ chosen spouses cages onto hot frying pans of the people their hearts will chemically vie for. That’s why there’s too much sin even inside the church giving birth to death – AIDS and stone cold souls.
If your child and their spouse love each other and are happy with their relationship and their life together, do not try and find things wrong that just are not there! Be happy for them! It is okay to be wrong! So you never thought you would like the spouse, you never thought they would change into a person you could like! That does not matter, your child is happy and you may be blinded by something you should have let go of a long time ago!
If we daughters are so bad, then why are so many of us silent sufferers at the hands of our parents/parents in-laws? Why do we take the hits that keep on coming? It is because we love those children of others that we bring in your folds…..in laws.
Parents can sometimes force pressure on to their children. A relationship that was supposed to be enjoyable lacks that time to enjoy their youth and turn their united fists in to fighting tools against the hard hitting parents. Challenging relationships can offer some of our most powerful growth opportunities. We shouldn’t end relationships lightly at the pleasure of parents or parents’ in-law, even when they prove difficult, especially because, as we shall see, we must ultimately, at some level, engage with the defense mechanisms most prevalent in our environment. But when we have strongly considered all of our options, applied optimally effective strategies, and still determined that the relationship is highly unlikely to become a healthier one, it is then reasonable to remove ourselves from the situation.
For parents out there, if your child and their spouse love each other and are happy with their relationship and their life together, do not try and find things wrong that just are not there! Be happy for them! It is okay to be wrong! So you never thought you would like the spouse, you never thought they would change into a person you could like! That does not matter, your child is happy and you may be blinded by something you should have let go of a long time ago!
Do not treat the children of your child’s that you don’t like the spouse of differently than that of your other children’s kid’s. Big hint–The kids who are treated differently know! And they do not understand why! It is hard to have to explain to your child, “Honey, I’m sorry but grandma and grandpa have never liked me, they didn’t want your dad to marry me so they treat you differently,” when your children want to know why grandma and grandpa treats them so differently! Grandparents, it is wrong to put your grandchildren in the middle.
The foolish neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget…but my loving husband whom my former admirers would love to hate sat with me humbly for the past 2 years over this matter. At first, he put sense in to my mind back in 2010 to withdraw a lawsuit against my husband. What people have never understood is I did not directly sue my parents. But the attorney company I hired to press the legal charges against Dr Njenga who abused my well being went on charging everyone who was involved. I was so angry at my father when I learnt that actually he signed those procedures which gave Dr Njenga a nod to conduct his psychological abuse on me and I lost my child in a pool of blood in the aftermath.
The media immediately launched offensive attacks against me without considering the post psychological effects I just rose up from. Dr Njenga abuse, my husband jailed, lost child, combined family’s continuous scathing attacks, hired hit-men tracking me everywhere and CID police on my case. I slid to personal psychological defense mechanism system since my husband wasn’t there around me. The people who were around me by then were cowards, big talkers and chicken hearts. I resorted to being my own bodyguard, doctor and media attacks fighter until my husband got released from jailed!
Defense mechanisms which are specific archetypal patterns of behavior that result when human systems – whether on the individual, family, social, cultural, national or global levels – take on particular suboptimal structural configurations. These structural configurations developed in response to trauma, an event that wounded my system, infringing on its ability to meet its human needs for a period of time, to an extent great enough to affect the system’s arrangement of parts. Physical trauma led to structural changes on the physical, as well as on all other levels, while other forms of trauma impacted the more abstract, but equally crucial, structural aspects of my human system. It was very bad with the memories of huge loss of blood, beatings, CID trauma and Limuru ordeal.
Healthy systems, in anticipation of or in response to events or conditions, develop firm, but flexible boundaries. In the wake of a significant trauma, however, a system may develop a more extreme configuration – either overly rigid or overly flexible – that protects itself and its most important elements in order to best survive the immediate situation. Crucial as this response may be for short-term coping, this defensive structure may remain long after the original trauma has run its course, continuing to generate dysfunctional behaviors that inhibit the system’s ability to meet its needs and to develop or maintain sustainable health and maturity.
Trauma – consisting of several types and originating from personal, family, social, global and environmental sources -has grown so prevalent in many of our human systems that it has become normalized.
Events and conditions that significantly diminish our ability to meet our evolved human needs have often come to be perceived as inevitable or even desirable. Thus, the resulting structural changes and defensive behaviors associated with trauma have become pervasive, exerting a profound impact on our lives, our institutions and our planet.
This is why dear Kenyans, it’s been a lengthened battle between this tiny army and you. Whether we like it or not, we belong to one country. We remain children of the same blood and culture. A time reaches when we need to put this foggy filth behind us and move on. Am not expecting everyone to like me for already some were full of hate for “their” own selfish reasons and they know it. I am writing to formally apologize, for all the moments of pain and misery that I might have inadvertently caused you, throughout my formative 2 and a half years. lso take this opportunity to forgive you in each and every trauma you’ve put me through!!!!
I therefore take this opportunity to apologize, for my constant bickering with you my beloved dad and mother (when I wasn’t trying my hardest to ignore you). I realize that you are not the annoying, sociopathic space aliens that I once thought. You are, in fact, quite wonderful wonderful people. Thanks to my husband who tirelessly inserted the positive thinking in to my senses of reason and thought that brought major meaningful senses. Now I reached a decision.
Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength which I missed but I can now see sense in it from the age of 13 when they were not there for me till the age of 29. How many years of parental absence? The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder. I hope you understand this and relieve me of this burden. I do confess though that I did not think you liked me in the past 2 years. They put a live teddy bear in my crib. I have therefore decided to put all this bitterness away and forget it for good.
This is not a condition, but I request you Dad and Mum to kindly accept my husband and child as part of our society. They’re the family I got. Whether we like this fact or not, they’re one of the major things that sent me away. Now am back and request to be accepted back with them. Is that okay Mum? Is that okay? Matthew 19:6
The Holy Bible says at Ephesians 6:4 “And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.” Which means I have decided to come back to the dynamic family of the Arungas because I’ll never be provoked to anger again.
To you my dear mama, I was a mama’s daughter right from the time I remember. All my childhood memories have you in their frames. I learnt to walk erect soon enough, in more ways than one, with your unconditional love and affection. You taught me to be thankful, count my blessings, and learn from my mistakes. I couldn’t let you down. You had the vision to look at our family as a team and strengthen my wings to enable me to take off on my own in my early teens. You gave me all the space I ever needed to grow.
You weathered all the storms and turbulences that struck your path and demonstrated with élan, that a woman has many roles to play and being a mother is one of them. Little did I realize then that this was your way of imparting early lessons in motherhood. You braved the loss of your own mother with the composure of a saint. The dignity with which you let go of her was a tribute to her life shared with you. You were there again, guiding my steps when I walked into matrimony. I learnt from your marriage, that the secret of seeing it through the years is in just staying married.
You taught me that it takes a lot of courage, patience and selfless love to wade through the difficult times which cloud the happy moments.
You took our child Sinclair into your arms when the world enjoyed the negative relationship that was between me and you.I chanced to see the joy and tears in your eyes which I missed seeing when I was in your arms.
You were willing to learn the ropes of being a mother with me once more and better yourself at it, all over again.
You had only yourself to compete with. Hats off to that spirit! Your happiness only increased manifold when I placed my daughter in your arms. You probably felt that the almighty had given you one last chance to work on her in the areas you missed out on, with me. I know for sure that your efforts will bear fruits one day.
I know that I shouldn’t have acted like that and that is why I am truly and deeply sorry for making you hurt on both the inside and on the outside, but you must believe me that my love for you will either stay the same or grow to be more because without you my son lacks a grand mother. And it’s reaching a time where your role over him is knocking the door.
I am flying back home soon to visit you and make up for the rest personal family matters that I may not discuss here.
To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.
I am ready to rejoin this family again and fulfill this fruitful epistolary of good times that we did miss in absenteeism.
Let parents bequeath to their children not riches, but the spirit of reverence!! May I be forgiven in the name of Jesus Christ!
AMEN
Your Daughter,
Esther
PS: You and Dad asked me to quit Karachuonyo constituency as a MP candidate, I request that I discuss that with my husband then I’ll make an announcement in a more mature way!
Exclusive and Photos: Esther Arunga’s letter to her Parents
