I struggle with all the Tradition Days. My family is so lost in all the traditional schisms of the world that we would communicate better without a common language.

Sigh.

I do. I fawned over my mother for years, with cards and flowers on Mother's Day. Then I found out that she instigated the most severe beatings my abusive father ever gave me. She had some sort of jealousy problem, my therapist explained to me, when I began dating in high school. Freud would have had a field day with her, I guess.

I was basically a good boy and I didn't lose my virginity until I was in my senior year of college. But in high school in the 10th grade I came home from a date and mom was waiting for me. I'd done nothing wrong, but she had my dad break my nose with his fists. He complied like the gorilla in the home that he liked to be. He beat me bloody as she stood in the background, lying to him that I was having sex with my girlfriend and egging him on. My blood spattered the wall, literally. Not a good motherly memory, or a fatherly one, either. I was 16.

When I was 52 she was still at it again at Christmas with the family, this time lying that I was gay. I'm not gay. I'd just had my female fiancee break up with me, and mom blamed me for it and had me punished by--you guessed it--dear old dad. Not that it was my fault or any of her business why we broke up. My elderly father, still the gorilla, punched me in the nose again. I was 52.

Nobody hits me now. I don't talk to mom any more and live in another state out of the range of dad's fists, and so I'm safe. I'm 54, but it's not too late. The last two Christmases have been a little lonely, as were Mother's Day and Father's Day for that matter. But better a little lonely than a lot bloody, I say.

Yes, I find that this will be the most uncomfortable day for my mother and I. This one is most complicated. I don't know what to do for her or give her. I was thinking of seeing my grandmother but she has been going through her own tough moments( passing relative).

I am grateful for my aunt who is like my 2nd mom.

This time around, I can't be any closer to her but I can decide what to do about that.

Mom...?