MY MOM
My mom is very powerful for a woman in her fifties. Let me rephrase that — my mom is very powerful, period. This is not because she practices Tai chi (despite this being how she sees it), but because of her ability to shut me up by just looking at me. I don't know if the calm, infamous stare is a parenting technique or an asian parenting technique; the only certainty is that the calm stare is fueled by anger that can and will end me, if needed. The beauty, however, is in the inverse relationship between how angry she is and how calm she appears — the calmer she is, the more angry she eventually will become. It is ever so frightening simply because I love my mom an abnormal amount – more than I am willing to tell her. It probably has to do with her almost giving me up for adoption when I was younger. Just kidding. She could never. She is an incredible woman and mom despite me not being the best child growing up.
In the former years of elementary school, it was pretty much social suicide to display any form of affection to a person of the opposite gender, let alone your mom. This was very apparent when my mom continued to pick me up and greet me with a hug after school – even in the third grade. I mean, it was fine between kindergarten and the second grade, but by the third (come on now), I was basically as grown and as independent as I am today. Despite that day being more than a decade ago, I still remember it clearly. I remember how she beamed with joy and how her arms were wide open as she approached me, as if she was a human shield sheltering me from the cruel world that surrounded us. But nope. Absolutely not. Her little boy had grown up. I ducked to elude the warm hug she tried to greet me with, smiled and said “not here, mom.” Little did I know that my actions were colder than day old oatmeal and I could still see the hurt in her face to this day.
I am lucky because she either doesn’t remember or she chooses not to remind me of that experience. Come to think of it, my mom is much cooler than I am. Aside from her great affection for her children and her incredible will to practice Tai Chi, she volunteers a bunch and has a good number of friends. Her jam-packed schedule and her ability to follow through with it every day is a demonstration of her tenacity and a reminder that I have yet to live up to my potential. I honestly would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bit jealous of how courageous she was, having transitioned to a foreign country with not a dollar to her name in an attempt to build a better life for her and her family. This is not to say she does not nag me constantly or pull rank on me to remind me where I stand because she does – and she does a damn good job of it. However, my relationship with my mom and our understanding of each other has gotten better over the years, but like all things, it has and will continue to have its share of struggle and hardship.
It was tough growing up.
Lunch was awful. Just awful. For a good part of my elementary years, she packed leftover rice, huge portions of vegetables, and smeared bits of meat – it was garbage made with love and she had the audacity to call it lunch. The vegetable to meat ratio was so embarrassing that I refuse to share that information to this day. On top of that, a good portion of my classmates had sandwiches for lunch – so you can imagine the discomfort I felt standing out, eating my love-filled rice. I remember how elated I felt when I was able to convince her to start packing sandwiches for lunch. On that day, I opened my lunch box to reveal black forest ham and a single cheese slice stuck between two soggy whole-wheat pieces of bread; the bread might as well have been one-hundred percent whole-wheat because I was one-hundred percent not satisfied. I could feel my blood boil – the eight-year old me just wanted a decent lunch. I mentally prepared myself to yell at her that very night as I gobbled away at the sandwich. That said, the moment she got home from work, I sensed how tired she was and how insatiable I was being that I decided not to bring it up. When she asked me how the sandwich tasted, I told her it was great. This is the story of how I ended up eating soggy sandwiches for lunch, but it makes me happy reflecting on this story simply because the sandwiches were made with maternal love.
School was easy but those years were tough. My clothes were hand-me-downs from my older siblings and or cousins. My mom rarely ever bought new toys and gaming consoles were out of the question. It took me a long time to swallow the hard truth that my mom didn’t buy me nice things not because she didn’t love me, but simply because we couldn’t afford them. It was tough for her – she worked two jobs for a good part of my childhood to make ends meet. Everytime I think about how much she sacrificed and how much she will continue to sacrifice, I am reminded of how fortunate I am – so yes, between you and me, I love my mom. I have yet to say those three words to her though. I don’t know – it’s complicated.