Childhood memories, translated…
From outside the fences came, “Bill Collection!”, my mother who was working on the sewing of the shirts she’d brought home from the factories frowned, sighed, lowered her voice to me, “Go up to the windows upstairs, and tell the bill collector that mom’s not home.”
not my picture…
During those years, I’d often gone up to the second floor, called to the outside, “My mother is NOT at home”. Not knowing, that every semester, as the tuitions were due, my mother would get so worried that she’d stopped sleeping, and had to borrow the money from my aunt who’d married a businessman, and waited until she got her paycheck from the factory, then, pay my aunt back.
Because I’d never felt that we were poor. My mother’s able hands had allowed the four of us children to dress in clean clothes, more fashionably, compared to our classmates, she’d sew for us sisters, the blue skirts for our uniforms, and every single night before bed, she’d lain them flat out, and kept it overnight under the mattresses, so we would have perfectly folded skirt to school the next day. Every New Years, we’d not worn brand new clothes, but the alters that my mother had taken a ton of care and love in making, I’d recalled that blue velvety dress that was passed down by my eldest sister, to my second eldest, then, to me, my mother added the lace collar, and stitched a few light blue flowers on the front, I’d worn it with pride, for so many years.
not my picture…
In elementary school, the moment I’d opened up my lunch at noon, all of my classmates started looking into my packed lunch with envy, because mom could make the foods so delicious and so colorful, aromatic, with some simple produce items, and, every now and then, when I’d not had the appetite, there would be volunteers from my class, to help me clean up my lunch.
Growing up in the family of a government office worker, without much pay, we’d not felt how hard life was, we’d only felt bad for my mom, who’d worked hard during the daytime, in the household chores, and stayed up all night, to finish the work she took home from the factories, and, we’d all become, really awkward, as we’d gone shopping with her, seeing her bartering with the vendors over, and over, and over again.
Thinking back to my mother’s lowering her voice telling me to yell out the windows, “My mom’s not at home”, thinking back, I now realize, how much embarrassment, how much sorrows were, in my mother’s words.
not my photo…
So this, would be the trials of your family’s life when you were growing up, and yet, your mother had provided for you well, giving you everything you’d needed, so you’d not needed to worry about the trials, the hardships that your family was facing, and that, is a mother’s love for her children.
Life, the Obstacle Course 