Want to know a person better? Find out what makes that person angry and how. You’ll discover a wealth of information there. My mother often told me, “Honey, we are at our best and worst when angry.” I never really understood that then because I was busy with my own sibling quarrels with Jess. Our house shook with our heated voices every time. Mom, all throughout our fights, would simply watch patiently biding her time like she had a little secret tucked away somewhere in her heart.
And so the years went by. I grew up-- met a lot of people; played and worked with them; had my own family and my own circle of friends. In the midst of it all, my feelings ran the whole range of emotions like a Ferris wheel — up, down and around—giving and receiving. I had the fiery temper of an active volcano, spewing up hot lava with the slightest provocation. I could throw everything, words and things, at the object of my anger—even the biases and prejudices of others not even my own. My cousins wouldn’t touch me with a ten-feet pole and would scamper away like terrified rabbits every time the ‘volcano’ rumbled.
Until one day, my brother and I were having another argument exchanging heated words. Feeling so much slighted, I prepared a seething tirade to shame even the strongest and brilliant of men. But suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks—looked at him—and felt my heart jump. I walked away.
Later that day, Mom came to me and said, “You know, Honey, it takes the very best of a person to love and understand the other—--even when the volcano inside you kicks like hell.” With that she then planted a warm kiss on my forehead saying, “Child, your education is now complete.”
posted on Wednesday, September 07, 2005 3:58 PM
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