How the parents still LACKED the appreciation for their daughter, and only cared for their sons, for NOT being around them, translated…
The summer days without the breezes, the sun shone bright. In my garden, the green leaves, embellishing those white flowers, in bloom. My neighbor, a green thumb, Sis smiled and walked over, “Your crape jasmines are well taken care of, blooming by the years.” So, this is called the crape jasmines! The oval shaped extended leaves stayed green year-round, the petals had the wavy folds, such a pretty little, bush! This summer, the very first time you’d, linked the name of this flower to the way it looked.
“It’ll keep on blooming until autumn! There are other names for this flower too, pinwheel flower………” your neighbor explained, both pronunciations are Taiwanese, sounded quite, similar. A few summers ago, you’d taken home this potted plant, as your mother handed it to you, it was already, budding then. Your mother loved planting the flowers too, but this particular species was apparently, “not her style”. The colors caused her to panic, and, she’d, projected her own fears of growing older onto it. She’d loved the aromatic all-year-round sweet olive, the always-in-season crabapples, she was, into how she’d gained the strengths from looking at her plants, especially inside her home, where, the children and grandchildren don’t live, she’d needed, even more, colors, to bring her that zest of life.
For many years on end, the two of them kept guard over their homes. My mother who was extremely cleanly, kept the yard swept regularly,, and, as the New Year’s cleaning came, her eyes with the cataracts became cleared suddenly, above the windowsills, beneath the cabinets, all the corners of the house, can you imagine an eighty-year-old elderly woman climbing up and down the cabinets? My father told her to stop it, and, it’d, gotten the neighbors gossiping too…………
illustration from UDN.com
My parents live independently, with their dignities intact, and yet, as they aged, how can they not feel the least bit, flustered? My father once asked, “What’ll happen to your mother and I?”, you’d replied, “why don’t you two move in…………”, you’d noticed that look of unwilling that he was, trying, to hide from you, toward his traditional patriarchal belief system, how can he feel comfortable, relying on a daughter who’s, already, married? And now, we aren’t made to take our husbands’ last names, but in your father’s eyes, other than being politically incorrect to him, maybe, you’re, already, an outsider of the, family now.
As you felt tangled by not being understood, your friend told you, it’s not that easy, for our parents’ generation to stray away from the traditions, as her older and younger brothers all married, she’d, stayed single, to care for her aging parents, and her mother kept carrying the thoughts of “why aren’t my sons caring for me?” As my friend mentioned this, years after her parents died, she still, couldn’t, quite let go.
As the seasons shifted from spring to summer, my father had problems with his intestines, got hospitalized, and the surgery was successful, the following day after his discharge from the hospital, he had difficulties urinating, the two of them rushed to the E.R. You’d driven all night to them, and yet, your father told you, “I really don’t want to impose on you………” it’s okay! But, in this year of the outbreaks, what you’d hoped, the only son of yours, who’d, immigrated to a foreign country, is still, kept locked out from this country!
After the seasons of autumn, the crape jasmines bloomed, withered, away, you’d, breathed in that light scent, you’d, squatted by the bushes, and felt that sourness rising up from inside the bottom of your heart, and, you’d, inhaled it in, with that light aroma from the flowers, and, you’d felt, a bit, better. The times and nature are, so beautiful still, it’d, comforted you, and as you’d, let go of that stubborn belief of “I must”, the roads before you started, showing up, you knew, that you are, about, to take your own steps, into, your own, life soon.
And so this, is how the parents are still, too traditional in their belief systems, their sons are ALL away from them, they still have their daughter around them, caring for them, and she’s, SACRIFICED her life for you, to take care of you, she’d not gotten, married, and you, FUCKING (don’t pardon me here!) parents still didn’t KNOW how to appreciate her? Yeah, talk about a bunch of, ill-fitted, parents here, and this is still a belief that’s, rooted down, since the beginning of the dynasties, of how we all need male HEIRS to carry on our own family’s last names, well, guess what, without us women, there will be NO more children getting conceived or born! And yet these parents still LACKED the kindness, the appreciation toward their own, daughters?