A Gigantic Flame, a Treasure Map of Memories

Translated…

My Mother’s Motto Was, “If You Want to Be Yourself, Then, You Must Do it Yourself.” She’d Faced Everything, Took Care of Everything, Carried Her Own Burdens of Emotions, of Course, This Included, Her Failed Marriage Too………

If You Want to Be Yourself, Then, You Must Do It Yourself

This Mother’s Day is especially meaningful to me and my younger brother, because had our mother been alive, she would be ninety-years-old right now.

from the papers…

In the book, “The Backside: My Father, Yang Bo”, I’d written over 2,000 characters, to commemorate my mother, Mrs. Yung-Pei Chi, but, the truth is, that no amount of words, would be enough, to describe this amazing, wonderful mother of mine, and this, was how I was more blessed, compared to my own father, he had a mother who’d passed early, that he could keep in his heart, but without the sweet love of the mother to take care of him, to make him feel loved.

My mother’s motto was, “If you want to be yourself, then, you must, do it yourself.”, she’d faced everything on her own, taken care of it all, managed everything, swallowed her tears down, and of course, this, included her failed marriage as well.

From when we were born, she’d, worked really hard, to raise the two of us up, for nearly twenty years, my mother had, singlehandedly, raised up this one-parent family, with absolutely NO financial, or any other kinds of help from without.

Taiwan, in the 1960s, before the gas stove wasn’t an everyday household item, people used the coal pieces as fuels, to cook, to make sure that lunches and suppers are on the table on time. And, the fuel sources after supper to the morning next day, my mother watched and looked over, and this included the bath water she’d heated up, as well as the water to cook our breakfasts with. And for that, my mother needed to get up in the middle of the nights, to put more coals into the stoves, even if it was, the coldest of the winter nights, she’d had the quilt around herself, and gotten up, fearing, that she might oversleep, and we’d have no heat in the morning. She’d worked hard away, teaching her classes during the daytime, and at night, she still couldn’t, afford a good night’s sleep, she’d worked too hard, for the sake of my family.

How Will You Know How Aromatic the Flowers are, If You Don’t Bend Over and Smell Them?

In the pressures of needing to keep up with the household economics, my mother didn’t hesitate one bit, nor did she feel scared, she’d led us to live a life that’s impoverished, but happy. And, from time to time, she’d thought, that fate, or life wasn’t fair, but, she’d still faced all the trials of her life with a positive attitude. In her mind, she’d carried a steady kind of belief, because she wanted to be herself, so she’d persisted, took charge, and became, the owner, of her OWN destiny.

someone’s sketch…

I recall the days when we were growing up, we lived in this Japanese style one story house, passed through the entryways, head up two steps, then we’d, entered, into the living room, the floor was lined with straw mats, walking on it barefoot feels so amazing, my younger brother and I would often call our friends over, and start rolling on the straw mats. The ceilings of the Japanese style houses are too short, and by middle school, we were both, very tall already, and we’d often, bumped our heads onto the beams that supported the roof, and my mother would say to me, “if you’re willing to bow your head, then, you won’t hit your head.”, and, it’s been, half a century now, and I still recalled these words that my mother told me, full of wisdom, and I’d, gotten a first experience of what she was, talking about.

On the weekends (of course that is usually after we’d completed our assignments and after my mother had looked over it), my younger brother and I would get an interesting task to do, from my maternal grandfather, for us to take care of the plants, to pull up the weeds that were growing so freely in the yards, and, my mother became the one, who watched over us as we completed these tasks. They believed, that this, was the training for us, that it would, help us have more sense of responsibilities toward our families, so we will become children who are willing to give to others, who can, make it on our own.

My maternal grandfather told us, “Manual labor is the best kind of learning outside of the textbooks.” My mother also said, “if you don’t kneel close to the ground, how will you be able to smell the aromatic flowers?” my mother had focused hard on setting a good example for us, she’d rolled up her sleeves, ad, showed us how to trip the hedges, how to experience life. And that, was how we were able to, learn so much, in these instances of education that came up in life.

The Nobel Prize for literature winner, Romain Rolland once said, “The mother’s love is a great big torch.”, and, this majestic torch of our mother’s love, kept, shining down on my brother and me, and, on this eve of my mother’s ninetieth birthday, if she were still alive, I want to use this article, to show how much I really miss her.

And this, would be how far a parent’s influence on a child’s life can go, this woman learned a TON of values from her mother, from watching her mother interact with the world around, from how her mother had, raised her and her brother, she’d picked up these most important values, and took it with her along the way, and that, would be how much a parent’s values can influence a child without the parent ever realizing it.