My mother left me

"Why are you so strong?" a seminary teacher asked me in the spring of 2009. I was a little surprised: She had only taught me one class, why did she have such an impression on me? I didn't have an answer at the time, and I didn't know what her comment meant, but I started to figure it out.

One day a year later, when I was exercising in the gym, this question was lingering in my mind, and suddenly a thought flashed through me: "Think about your mother."

My mother passed away in 2006. At that time, the three sisters each of us wrote a short eulogy on the memorial program. After several years of "reflecting on my thoughts", I realized that I had never truly understood my mother in the past. Here I will sort out my thoughts and re-examine the impact my mother has had on me, not only to miss my mother, but also to explore myself.

▲Zixin’s growth has brought her mother a lot of joy.

Observe carefully and encourage when appropriate

My mother was born in the countryside of Hunan, mainland China. She didn't like studying when she was a child. She stopped going to school after graduating from elementary school. She spent most of her time helping with housework at home and hanging out with friends in her free time. Although I don’t know much about my mother’s experience growing up, based on my observations after living with her for decades, my mother has excellent motor skills, strong housekeeping skills, and is very creative.

In my memory, my growth brought my mother a lot of joy. Although I don’t remember much about my childhood life, I am particularly impressed by three things. When I was about five years old, one day I came home tired from playing outside. As soon as I walked in, I said to my mother, "It's so hot. There are nine suns above my head!" My mother laughed and praised me for being good at describing things. One time I said at the dinner table: "I also like to eat this dish." My mother was very surprised and praised me for being able to use the word "also". When I picked up chopsticks to eat for the first time, my mother was very happy to notice that I knew how to use chopsticks.

Although my mother has a lot of housework, she pays close attention to my changes. Whenever I grow, she encourages me with a happy smile, letting me know that every new thing I learn is progress. Under the encouragement and guidance of my mother, I have always been a person who loves learning and has a strong thirst for knowledge.

▲In order to raise a large family with limited resources, Zixin’s mother taught herself without a teacher and sewed clothes for her children.

Use creativity and be diligent and thrifty

After my father retreated to Taiwan from mainland China with the army, like many similar families, our life was very tight. My mother could not play freely with her friends as she did when she was young. She had to devote herself to running the housework "if you are poor, you can change, and if you change, you can be flexible". , to raise six children.

In order to save money, my mother, who had never learned to tailor, picked up scissors, learned while doing it, and sewed clothes for us with her own hands. Once, she sewed an identical blue dress for my sister and me. It had several layers of ruffles and was very pretty. My sister and I got countless compliments when we wore it. In addition, my mother also learned to knit and used wool to make vests, coats, gloves, scarves and other cold-weather clothing for us.

My mother was very good at reusing waste: advertising leaflets were folded into small boxes and used as garbage cans for the dining table; small wooden blocks were turned into live bolts on the door; remaining wool was mixed and knitted into pieces of rags and footcloths; leftovers from the evening meals were Making changes makes for a delicious breakfast the next day….

My mother goes to the vegetable market to buy vegetables almost every day. She deals with vegetable vendors in the market to buy the most economical and affordable ingredients. After returning home, she takes the trouble to clean them and arrange different dishes and tastes for the family... My mother’s cooking skills are extremely good. She can cook famous local dishes in Hunan. The bacon and sausages specially prepared for the Chinese New Year are very popular and fragrant. We taste them again and again, and some people in the neighborhood come to ask for them. After my mother passed away, her specialty pearl meatballs, steamed duck with glutinous rice, crispy shrimps, sour pickles, Hunan rice dumplings, sausages, and bacon became "unforgettable" foods that can never be eaten again.

Although she only received a primary school education, her mother has extremely strong life adaptability skills, is very fast and smart. During my schooling, I always had excellent grades, worked very quickly, and admired creative people. I never relied on recipes to cook and loved to learn and create my own dishes. I believe these are all inherited from my mother and taught by example.

In addition, my mother likes to sing, and she has a good singing voice and accurate pitch. I grew up with her humming and singing, and I naturally developed a sensitivity for melody. After I believed in the Lord in high school, I began to learn to play the piano under the guidance of the church pastor, and six months later I became the Sunday pianist. This was not only God’s grace and gift, but also the influence of my mother’s influence on me. Nowadays, when I go to any church, I can use my skills as a pianist to serve; and most of the current worship and praise songs do not have five-line notation, only simplified notation, which requires a good ear for music to cooperate. This is not difficult for me because my mother has trained me well. I think God will also give part of this credit to the mother, right? !

▲Zi Xin’s mother is an excellent cook. After her death, many of her specialty dishes became extinct and could no longer be eaten.

Give youth, sacrifice and dedication

Once I saw my mother standing on her head against the wall for several seconds. I was surprised and happy, and asked my mother how to learn to stand on her head. She said she learned it from playing with her friends when she was a child. She also participated in school running competitions and won a place. There are so many things at home, and my mother works hard and goes in and out every day. Without a healthy body, she cannot survive. One day when I was in high school, my mother asked me to rub her back for the first time. I beat her heavy, slightly curved back, and couldn't help but shed tears in my eyes. It was the first time in my life that I felt guilty and sad for my mother's hard work. I also realized what a noble sacrifice my mother made for her family.

My son once said to me in 2015: "Mom, with dad's income, I don't know how you raised us." His salary in the seventh year after graduating from college was already three years of his father's service in the church. Twice that ten years later. I think my own ability to "change when you are poor, and thrive when you change" is completely inherited from my mother. It is this kind of perseverance and ability to adapt, solve problems, and not be afraid of hardships that helped me to go through the challenges of coming to the United States to study alone, starting a family, serving the church, and facing illness. I want to thank my mother for the genes and example she passed on to me.

Although my mother is not a "strong woman" in the workplace, her care and hard work at home has shaped part of my personality. Although I appear to be "strong" on the outside, I am actually far inferior to my mother who worked hard to run the house during the poor years.

Amidst the numerous and busy housekeeping responsibilities, although the mother appeared to be capable and smart on the outside, her heart was actually suffering, making her very fragile and lonely. When I was young, I didn't understand my mother's inner world, so I often argued with her and even looked down upon her. I am my mother's only biological daughter, but I often don't understand her pain. Please listen to me...

▲Zixin’s mother worked hard and made noble sacrifices for her family.

The unsolvable troubles in my heart

My mother’s marital status has always been an unsolvable problem in my heart since I was young. This starts with the era my father lived in and the changes in political power.

My father was born in 1910, the last year of the Qing Dynasty, and the following year the Republic of China was born. In that era of transition from autocracy to democracy, many social rules and customs were changing, including family law. My father grew up in the early Republic of China, and the living customs in the village had not yet completely changed from the old habits of the Qing Dynasty. After graduating from Whampoa Military Academy, he first married a wife in his hometown and served as a county magistrate. He had three children. Later, he was recruited by the army and began to move around. Occasionally he would go home to visit when he had time (these were all after his father passed away. We sorted through his documents and discovered the "secret". We never knew that his father had a wife and children in China). When my father moved from his hometown of Hubei to Hunan, he met a girl who graduated from Changsha Women's Normal School. She had a pure and polite temperament, so he married her. His father never told this woman, who was fifteen years younger than him, about his wife and child in his hometown.

From then on, the father left his original home and lived with his second wife (she thought she was the first). After several years, the woman had not given birth and was very thin and sick, so she asked her sister to take care of her. The innocent, lively and diligent seventeen-year-old sister came to her brother-in-law's house and took good care of the housework. But I don't know how it happened. When she was eighteen years old, she gave birth to a son for her brother-in-law, who was twenty years older than her. This sister is my mother. My mother has lived in this home ever since, sharing a husband with my sister. This kind of family combination, which was very common in the Qing Dynasty, felt "unusual" in the Republic of China era.

The Civil Law of the Republic of China promulgated in 1930 stipulated monogamy, so my mother was not a legal wife. The eldest mother gave birth to the eldest sister a year after the eldest brother was born, and the mother gave birth to the second brother the following year. Then the whole family retreated to Taiwan with the army. My mother gave birth to my younger brother and me in Taiwan, and my aunt gave birth to my younger sister. Our six children’s ID cards all have the aunt’s name written in the mother’s column. Because they are sisters, they live in harmony. As for their inner feelings, we rarely explore them. We only occasionally hear them complain to each other and then reconcile. Neighbors said that my father was "blessed to everyone": my aunt was knowledgeable and good at handwriting, and she worked outside all the time; my mother stayed at home and took care of the housework. Both externally and internally, my father has "helpers".

▲The author’s mother plays mahjong to escape the emptiness and depression in her heart.

Mother’s confusion and loss

I first noticed my mother's confusion and loss when I saw a simple painting she drew when I was in elementary school: a sailboat floating on the sea, with a few words written on it: "I am a sailboat drifting on the sea." I don’t know where the boat is drifting. "I think the fact that my mother has no status and no status makes her feel scared and worried as the years go by, and she always lacks confidence in her heart. Later, I heard her lament: "I don't know what will be written on the tombstone after I die." This is what my mother considers to be pitiful and sad. When I was young, I didn't understand the "helplessness", "at a loss" and "powerlessness" of her situation. I only replied coldly: "If I had known today, why bother in the first place?"

When my mother was in mainland China, she and her father learned to smoke and play mahjong in social situations. Later, the hobby of playing mahjong became my mother's addiction. When I was still in elementary school, because I lived in a military community, it was common for adults to play mahjong. My parents often went out to play mahjong after dinner, and sometimes the two of them would quarrel over who played more. When we all grew up, my mother's housework became lighter and she had no other hobbies. Playing mahjong became her only social life. One day when I came home from high school, the door was locked. I was tired and hungry waiting outside. I hated my mother playing mahjong more than at any time. When my mother came back, I made her feel responsible. But my mother never changed. Instead, she got worse. She was still trapped in mahjong until she was old.

It wasn't until I took a course on "Personality Differences" in the seminary that I realized that my mother was a work-oriented person who didn't know how to build interpersonal relationships. She didn't have much spiritual communication with her children, and the relationship wasn't very close, so playing mahjong became Her way out. Sadly, my mother loses more than she wins when playing mahjong, and often asks her for money. The second brother and younger brother did not study well, and their lives began to become scattered. They would often ask for money, but their mother lingered at the mahjong table and ignored them. I blame all this on my mother and often criticize her. Later, she realized that she was using this to numb the emptiness in her heart and avoid the suffering of her own problems, so she couldn't bear to blame her any more.

My mother had never been to church in her life. I wanted to take her there, but she hesitated at the door and said, "I am a sinner, and I will never be able to cleanse myself." I didn't know that my mother had such a view of me, and she blamed herself so much, so I let her tell the truth. Even though Jesus loved sinners, she still crucified Himself first. She feared God and did not dare to enter the church rashly, but she did not understand the forgiveness of love, so she used "law" to punish herself.

▲Her husband’s unconditional love freed Zixin from the burden of her original family.

The root of "be strong" personality

Looking back on my relationship with my mother, although I have inherited many of her strengths, on the other hand, my psychological "stronger" personality is actually rooted in not wanting to have these "weaknesses" in my mother. It seems to me that my mother was "extremely stupid" for getting pregnant before marriage, so I will never lose her rationality when it comes to marriage. For me, my mother's addiction to the mahjong table is "irresponsible", so "responsible" seems to be My mother's lack of goals in life caused her to wander around in her later years and waste her life, but I am glad that Christianity has enriched my life; my mother cannot leave her marriage because she has no skills to make a living, so I have always emphasized women You must have independent livelihood skills and cannot rely on your husband; because of my father’s polygamy, I have doubts and fears about male love. Are all crows really black in the world? I determined that I would never allow myself to be controlled or abused by a man in the future. I must be his only one.

Perhaps because of my "strong" personality, I kept fighting with my first boyfriend to pay the bills, fearing that he would see me as a dependent girl or a girl who took advantage of me, even though I knew that would be embarrassing for him. During the first few years of my marriage, I was constantly competing with my husband, giving off a strong sense of independence, and often challenging his abilities, trying to prove that I could survive without him. It wasn't until my husband's "unconditional love" moved me that my hard heart gradually softened. Thank you Lord, it was my husband’s maturity and patience in our relationship that allowed me to shed the burden of my family of origin.

▲The author hopes that her mother will know that she misses and appreciates her mother very much now.

I hope my mother knows that I miss her very much and thank her

When my mother died, I was intellectually shocked, but emotionally numb. Because I felt alienated from her when I grew up, and I have been abroad for almost 30 years, my contact with her has always been superficial. My daughter got married in 2011. After the marriage, she was still very close to us as parents. She often called her to greet her and invited her to go out with her. We all praised her as a good daughter. Looking back on my relationship with my mother, I was neither caring nor caring, reckless, and ungrateful... Looking back now, I have too many regrets in my heart. I feel that I am ignorant, selfish, and cruel.

If I could have accepted my mother's marital status and the pain caused to her by the triangle relationship back then, and had the counseling skills I have learned today, I would have relieved her worries, comforted her doubts, and affirmed her lifelong dedication to this family and children. of contribution.

I admit that I am not a good daughter to my mother, but I have no chance to make amends. I can only pray to God to forgive my pride, stubbornness, ignorance, and foolishness, and remind myself again to be more empathetic in my emotions and the experiences of others in the future. Rational mind.

Although I still don’t know what the professor meant when he asked me why I was so strong, the idea of “thinking of my mother” guided me to look at myself, and at the same time I lamented that I failed to understand my mother, accept all of her, and embrace her before she was alive. How I wish my mother knew her daughter misses her so much and appreciates her now.

Author profile

The author is from Taiwan. After graduating from a seminary in the United States, he and his husband engaged in education and pastoral work, and continued to explore the path of personality and spiritual growth. By God's grace, now as a grandmother, she has matured in Christ.