the picture is from the papers…
The features of a woman, translated…
During the time when the Japanese ruled here, she has a beautiful Japanese name, “Yoko”. Born into a poverty stricken home, for the sake of helping out her household economics, at the age of nine, she’d started, working as a maid, helped looked after the kids of a Japanese language elementary school teacher, once, she’d carried the child on her back, as she listened in outside the classroom where her boss was teaching, the sound of students, reciting the text made her cry out of envy. Ever since, being quick to learn, she’d taught herself to read.
In her adolescent years, Yoko had once worked as an accountant of a cultural restaurant. The people who go in and out of the shops were all of the artistic and musical realms, it’d enriched Yoko’s life; and because she was responsible for playing the vinyl records of classical music, although she’d not taken up any music course, she’d started collecting the works of the greats like Mozart and Beethoven. Her depth of connection with her coworkers also, added more colors to her black-and-white life. Back then, although Yoko had been introduced to a ton of new things, but she’d still kept herself plain.
When she was younger, she was, beautiful, made a lot of men fall for her, and, there are so many, who wanted to, set her up, but, she had, turned them all away, because of how conservative she is. And still, there is a Japanese college student, Fukuda, who’d gone to the café where she worked to drink coffee, and listen to music, for the purpose, of waiting her to get off work, so he could walk her home.
The sad part about it was, this kept-in and naïve love had ended, after the Japanese had, lost the war. Fukuda had asked Yoko, if she was willing to, move to Japan with him, but because of the nationality differences and her status, Yoko turned him down in the very end. The day before Fukuda left, he’d said his quiet goodbye to her, and they’d been separated since, and, a short while after that, Yoko married.
Which woman doesn’t hold that fairytale dream come true for marriage, but, every one of these hopes, these dreams, got destroyed, after Yoko was married for just a year. Her husband had endless affairs, was violent toward her, and, the memories before the marriage became her escape. Gladly, the heavens looked down on Yoko, allowed her to have three amazing, outstanding sons, and this became, her pride and joy.
And still, in the past two years, a lot of the memories seemed to slowly disappear from, the ninety-year-old Yoko’s memories. In order to help Yoko keep her beautiful memories intact, her second son, Hong, every time he’d gone home would use an assortment of sing-song, question and answer methods, leading his mother by her hand, have her review her past with him; and he used some humor too, to make her laugh out loud, she’s so very happy.
And, Hong also used his thoughts, wrote the names down on cards, like the name of the place where she’d worked, her name, “Yoko”, the name of her first love, “Fukuda”, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., etc., etc., used so much heart, so Yoko can recite, review, over, and over again, those better memories of her younger years.
Yoko just so happens to by my mother-in-law, and Hong is my humorous husband. Every time I’d watched my husband, interact with my mother-in-law, it’s as if, I’m watching a heartwarming movie playing before my eyes, and I truly hope, that the memories of her better pasts, can get locked in, tightly, inside of my mother-in-law’s mind.
So, this elderly woman had her share of hardships, and, in the end, she was blessed with dementia, because she’s slowly, forgetting, and, with her son, reviewing the happier moments of her pasts with her, hopefully, that, is all that she will remember………
Life, the Obstacle Course 