Continuing from yesterday, translated…
My Mother’s Living Room
As I’d turned into the alley, it was, right around noon, I’d not, bumped into any neighbors, or anybody that my mother knew for that matter. The staircase was really dimly lit, the blue tarps covered up the grayed out walls, the moving company, the plumbers, along with the foreign bride agency’s numbers were posted, waited until I’d found that light switch, I’d found, that the switch didn’t work either. I’d, climbed up the stairs, step, by step, slowly, toward that place, where no light can enter. The old styled pebble paved flor became like the steeped cliffs of the mountainsides, I’d hung on the steel bars painted red, to steady myself, oh, how many years, had my mother touched across this steel rail, I’d used it for support too when I was just a child, step, by step, upward, toward the very first, small apartment that my mother owned.
I’d stuck the key into the keyhole of that wooden door, turned it, and yet, that simple movement, I’d kept turning and turning, over, and over, and yet, it just, didn’t seem, to open. The house was dead silent, there was, no longer, my mother’s familiar voices, ushering me home again. I’d, opened the doors, took, a very huge gulp of air, and closed the door behind me. My mother surely isn’t here anymore, I’d, reminded myself. Lifted my head, there hung, the calendar, reminding of the day that my mother fell, a brand new, January eighth.
There was, an oil that hung on the living room walls, which my mother had bought from a roadside stand, of Napoleon on his steed, before Napoleon, there was, the portrait of Chiang Kai-Shek. Later on, Napoleon was also, hauled off, and after that, as she’d learned that there was a hero on the canvas, she’d, stopped liking him.
In this same house now, I seem to be able to hear, my mother, reading those articles to me as a child, heard how she would stepped on the pedals of her sewing machine, heard her sing the old tunes of “Mom, Take Care”, and “The Hometown of Dusk”………heard her snoring, after she’d, drifted off, into her darkened sleep in the afternoon hours, heard the television playing those endless, over and over, replayed scripts of people slapping one another across the faces, in the soap operas.
My mother was a woman of contradiction, she’s a, tough business woman, more sturdy than anybody else I knew, very hard working too, but, she was, very afraid of the feelings of pain, even if I’d massaged her, she’d cried out for me to stop because of the pains. During the daytime, she’d gotten, so very tough, arguing with the neighbors, but at night, she’d often started sobbing secretively, as she recalled my father, my older brothers and my younger brothers. She was found, between the two poles of being strong and being weak, she’d fed, to my growing imagination, she’d added to my observing nature, and also, influenced, my sorrows too.
The light in the old house was as usual, or even darker still. The lights of the day always appeared bluish gray, my mother felt unwilling to turn on the lights, or rather, it’s safe to say, that turning on the light has no relations with her eyes, not being able to see anymore. I’d turned on the lights, hoped to chase away that coldness. Then, I’d, sat, alone, on that long bench in the living room, normally as I’d come to see her, this, is where she’d sat, in this dent in the couch. And now, my turn, to sit here, the tea tray was, exactly like before she’d left it, the medications from the hospitals were scattered, all over the places, the nutritional items I bought for her, the nutritional items she bought from the advertisements of the radio shows (she’d often had me buy the Gingko biloba, the fish oils), and the tissue wads she had for her eye drops too, there were, the scissors, the tiger balm, the nail clippers inside that small basket on the table, along with the presidential voting papers that its owners didn’t have the opportunities to vote on.
So, for this first part, the narrator is describing how her mother’s place became so lacking of life, of a scent of something, since her mother had died, and, it’d given off that scent of loneliness here…
My Mother’s Dressing Table
This old house felt especially long and narrowed, always dark, and until you’d walked into it deeper, you’ll, find her bedroom.
Sitting in her bedroom, you can tell, that it’d belonged to an ordinary, elderly who’d worked hard, to save every last penny, but it was, a clean, tidy, but darkened room, without the scents of the elderly, nor the scents of the medications, although she’d been taking her heart and her high blood pressure, as well as an assortment of medication for everything that she has, but, other than the smell of the moist, it’d smelled, quite refreshed, each and every article of her clothes are still, very cleanly, you can still smell the laundry detergent on them too.
She was rushed off in a hurry by the ambulance, and her room still had the looks from before she was, taken from it, untouched by others. I’d, patted down her quilt, and all of her bedding were, what I’d not needed anymore, older in style. The two quilts still had my mother’s scents on them, this made the organized, orderly room, lost the way it’s supposed to look all of a sudden. I’d pulled up the quilt, folded it up, fluffed up her pillows, put it at the top of her bed. Then, I’d, sat on the edge of her bed, turning my eyes again and again, my vision stopped on the dressing mirror in front for a very long time. I’d glided across the surface with my index finger, and my fingertip was filled up by the dust, the lipsticks, the lotions, the toners, the perfumes………there were, two levels of smaller cabinets by the large mirror of her dressing mirror, and underneath, a three-level drawer, which you can place the folded clothes in. I’d pulled open the first drawer, it’d contained my mother’s undergarments, the beige-colored underwear, it’s what she’d used to, the corsets with the rows of buttons, something she had tailor-made from a place. My mother was keen on her looks, she’d used her own methods, to preserve the beauties from the body she is now, living in pain in.
not my photograph…
The dresser drawer, it also had a couple of paper roses I’d made for her in elementary school, the roses made from paper looked somewhat childish, the colors had, faded. A lot of the Buddhist pictures were hung on that hook on her glass sliding door. I’d separated the red strings that became tangled together…
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I became like an inspector, opening up my mother’s drawers, her closets, one by one, thought about how my mother is never, to return to this old house again, I’d looked around the room, there were, traces of her life all over, that all of her things lost their owner, and, they’d all, lost that life about them too. I’d not gotten out of that faze until the temple downstairs played that music, and, I’d picked up a couple of loosely fitting pieces of clothing that my mother had, shirts, and jackets, then, I’d pressed the buttons, to turn off the lights. Walked to the kitchen, the place where mom and I chatted up the most in, the leftover food was cleaned off by my older brother who’d come over before, so clean, so tidy, and the usual of how the leftover foods got piled up dish, by dish on the tables is, gone n ow. She’d fallen down, right on the New Year’s holidays, I’d gotten home, told her I was, fatigued, she’d even, made a soup of Chinese medicine for me, I’d curiously, watched how she was making the soup, with the blindness from one eye, and reduced vision from the other, I’d found, that she’d, sniffed the meds as she was placing the items into the pot, I stood, by the darkened walls, and, shed my grateful and painstaking tears.
I’d carried my mother’s clothing across that dark and narrowed hallway again, the lanai had a crack opened, the cold wind entered…
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My mother who’d become a tramp in the hospitals, her life in the final stages was actually, tougher than I’d given her the credit for, but at times, it’d become, weaker than I’d ever imagined, the hard fights, the illnesses would always, gnaw away at our wills, causing the weakened lambs to finally, give in, to the wide-open jaws of the predators.
The daughter is older, an elderly daughter now, but my mother isn’t old, she’d, stopped time, lain there in bed, became, infantile, and, she was, a baby who didn’t cry at all, the throat that could no longer make a sound, the eyes, that can no longer cry those tears, it’s just, that her not crying, was a forced behavior.
I’d managed, to sit myself, into becoming, this statue of memory now, on this, destitute afternoon, allowing the sorrows, to hit me, like how those waves raged into the shorelines, turns out, there is, this sort, of a deep-seated, deep rooted love, but it wasn’t, romance, but the love and passions I’d felt, toward my own mother.
not my sketch…
I’d gently, closed the door, heard my mother’s laughter, saying how her daughters are all thieves, because the mothers would always, prepare an assortment of great foods, but, what the daughters come home, to steal away, are the mothers’ hearts.
So, this, is after your mother died, and you’d gone back to her place, and found that she is still living there, because everything that’s inside that house of hers, had her memories attached to them, and, being in your mother’s place takes you closer to her………