Does a motherless mother give birth to another motherless mother, who in turn begets a daughter who is assigned a mother but is left wishing she had more? My grandmother and her twin sister were abandoned by their mother, left on a doorstep of an aunt who wasn't really an aunt but was close enough to the family to be labeled aunt. I was never told what happened after that, or how my grandmother was raised, or where she went to school, or what she liked to do, or why she never learned to drive, or where she traveled...the past is never discussed on my maternal side. It has always remained untouched, left behind with every move, birth, and death...inviting the dust to collect and organize into a shrouded union of mystery until no one alive remembers that it even existed. My mother is the same way. Growing up I would constantly pose questions to her about her past: about her father that died when she was younger than I am now, about being forced to quit school and mother three brothers because her own mother stopped functioning, about going to boarding school in Greece, in Vienna, living in Pakistan, working in DC...her responses were always brief, rehearsed, and laden with a false complacency that attempted to cover a deeper pain, at least...I think...I hope...that my mother has more depth that I credit her to have. But nonetheless, does she treat me the way her mother treated her? Loathe to give hugs unless mandated by etiquette, asking questions but too impatient to await their answers, hormonally imbalanced and psychologically insecure and unsound, set off into a fit of rage because of a backpack on the floor or a kitchen appliance out of place...does she treat her son the way her father treated her? Condescension being the tactic of choice whenever entering into a conversation, regardless of its content. Humiliating punishments, and the yelling and the bickering...as if it's the only way they know how to communicate. As I age I wonder if my mother is changing and becoming less tolerable in my eyes, or if I am becoming more aware and less tolerant in hers.