From the minds of her children, translated…
When I was younger, I’d believed, that at age fifty, you’d be an elderly person. But my mother wouldn’t admit it, it wasn’t until she was AFTER fifty, did she get into her mind that she wanted to learn to drive. She’d taken the driver’s test three times, never got defeated, never feared, and, finally got her driver’s license, and, everybody is very happy for her.
After my mother learned to drive, there were, a ton of unexpected things that happened. My eldest brother gave her a brand new pink March, and, she treated it like it was her baby, would often wash her car, wax it, and, she’d even built it a garage too. Anybody who rode on it would be banned from drinking AND eating, even her most cherished grandson too; my mother had even asked her grandson to take off his shoes before he enters her car, because she feared, that her grandson who loved to climb all over the places will dirty the seats.
Then, when my father was almost eighty, he was ill, and had to get dialysis, and because we’re not around, my mother started carrying the responsibilities for taking him to the hospitals, sometimes, she would have to drive him from Yuli, to the hospital in Hualien to see the doctors, she’d become his special chauffeur. My mother often said, thank heavens back then she had the foresight to take up driving lessons, now she’s putting it to good use.
Surely! Thanks for my mom’s foresight, when her grandson was on summer or winter’s vacation, and would take the trains from Taipei to Yuli, she could drive to the train stations to take him home. Although we’re all worried that my mother is aging, that she might get into an accident, but, she’d always told us, with full confidence, “No problem! Don’t worry your minds like crazy, driving my grandson is NO big deal, it isn’t that long, DO feel more at ease!”
It’s true, thankfully, my mother had insisted on learning to drive, otherwise, it would be hard to imagine, how we would’ve dealt with the issues of him falling ill, getting to and from the hospitals, it could really trouble us all, her kids who don’t live close by.
So, this mother HAD the foresight, to learn to drive, and, turns out, that the mother WAS right on, and, the driver’s test here is NOT easy to pass, and yet, this elderly woman had managed, and that shows how persistence, hard work pays off, no matter how old you are!