Unfinished Words
Yung-Chen Chen 2012-07-18
My mother passed away about half a year ago because of internal bleeding. I did not say a word about not wanting to let her go. During the final hours with her, my dad, wife and I held her hands and sang her favorite songs until the EKG went flat. I did not shed a single tear as my mother would not like it.
In my memory, my mother had always been cheerful and happy. She would not let a single opportunity of singing slip. She enjoyed singing the song "Complacent Smiles" and dancing to it. Whenever this happened, I would always blush and hide my face for fear that people would know "the lady on the stage is my mother". Now I really want to see her doing this again.
"Wherever there is a successful man, there is a dedicated woman behind him." This summarizes the 30-year relationship of my parents. After I grew up, my mother jokingly told me that she was very impressed by my dad’s peeling a shrimp for her on their first date. After that, my mother became the one that peeled all the shrimps for him. Because my dad started his business from scratch, the initial times were very tough. In order to save money, my mother was responsible for all administrative duties of the company. Simply put, she would open and close the main door to the office and deal with all personnel related issues. For many years, my mother needed to cook lunch for twenty plus employees and still prepare dinner for the family. If my dad came home late because of social appointments, my mother would wait for his return and wait on him before going to sleep herself. She lived a life like this for eight years until both of them joined Tai Ji Men. After practicing qigong, they improved their health, mood, temperament and luck. Their business started to take off and expand its scope to include beverage wholesale and management of the distribution channels of foreign liquor and cigarettes in Taipei. My mother was then able to enjoy life and not worry about the internal affairs of the company.
I was the only child of the family. My relationship with my mother was close and harmonious, inseparable like fish and water. Whenever we were bickering, my mother would say, "I must have owed you in my prior life." And I would reply, "That’s why I bought your favorite perfume for you so you owe me some more." When I was in middle school, I was inconsiderate and often got upset with my mother and would bottle up those negative feelings. I blamed her for checking my drawers without my knowledge and checking my cell phones to see who I had called, and spreading the news about me. Actually she did all those things because she considered me as the greatest pride of her life. For the past ten plus years, I have been lucky to follow Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, Zhang-men-ren of Tai Ji Men, and participate in thousands of cultural performances both at home and abroad. Whenever my mother was available, she would invite all her friends to sit in the audience, and she would be busy pointing to me and other performers, not wanting to miss anything. However, when I got home and asked her about her viewing experience, she would pretend nothing special had happened. In fact, she had already sent the pictures she took for framing.
In the past, I felt that for a man to say, " I love you, Mom." is more difficult than getting the first place on exams. So for many years, although I felt very thankful to her, I always expressed my gratitude in cards and hid them where she could hardly find them. One year, she failed to find the Mother’s Day card and thought I was heartless and thoughtless. It was until one month later that she finally found it. After that, I would hide the cards where she could easily find. When I was in my senior year in college, Shifu guided me and told me, "Be brave and tell your mother how much you love her." I finally gathered my courage and said, "Happy Mother’s Day, Ma, and I love you." I deliberately slowed down when I said it and added a kiss at the end. To my surprise, she cried and hugged me and said, "You never kissed me since kindergarten. I love you very much, son." I finally got it; she did not dare to ask of me but she had waited this statement and this kiss for almost 20 years.
When I was in the compulsory military training, my mother came to see me. However, to save money, she took a second-rate bus and thus felt terribly carsick. Although she was not feeling well, she carried bags and bags of my favorite foods and accompanied me for a whole day. I felt very grateful for what she did but also felt bad to see her suffer, so I nagged her about her taking the cheap bus. I also thought about the time when I received my first paycheck and took her out for her favorite Korean BBQ, but all she worried about was that I did not have enough food. I thought about the date when I got married, she held my hands tightly on the stage, almost worried that I would be taken away. I thought about the weekends when she was watching the singing competition on TV, she was singing along while watching and criticizing the performances. These beautiful memories will always be treasured in my heart.
In the past, I always felt that I could "wait" to compensate my mother when it is her birthday, or when it is Mother’s Day, or when I have more time. Now, I can only look at her pictures and tell her my thoughts, and dream about seeing her again in my dreams. Sometimes I feel sad that she is gone so suddenly and wish that she could have talked to me more. I have adjusted for almost half a year and learned to change my thoughts and let go. Maybe she really loved me a lot and chose to leave me when I have a family, a career and become stabilized. I will keep the unfinished words at the bottom of my heart, and I will say here only the most important words: "Mother, I will love you all my life."
