Everyone Have a Story

For my hero, mama .....

The first time I lived away from home was in university. The afternoon of the move,I was with my mom and my brother, who were seeing me off in airport. It's hard to leave them - leaving my old life, leaving my brother, my mom, my grandma, especially; went to the land of my father for the first time, beside study in university. 

In the summer of 2013, a few months after I moved in, I lost my grandma. It was the biggest punch in the history of my life - losing the important one.  I spent my whole life since I was born until 19 years old of me with my grandma. I can said that my grandma is my parents at that time. I always remember the day my grandma left me for the first time for visited my uncle, I often flip through timeworn photos of my grandma, missing her like crazy (I think it proves that I really can't live without her - at that time when I was a naive kid). Four months after this tragedy, the other tragedy was come in and that all make me plunged into depression. It was a low point of me, perhaps the worst memories of my life. I need a few years until I can handling my wounds. I was lonely and dejected here. I was heading for the bottom and could not see a way out. I remember, at the time, I crying at the silences of midnight and try to wear a mask when I meet people, trying hard to cover up my pain from them, cover it by my jokes and sense of humor.

At the time, I never tried to understand that there are some people who felt the same wound as me, or more. Never tried to see how my mother felt at that time, mom had difficulty coping. But I busy feeling guilty and punishing myself. My mom was 40 at that moment, and the heartbreak in her beautiful face was not obvious but implicit. She was so strong.

Back in my worst days in the past few years, I always keep my wound itself. At that moment, the future was completely empty. My great dreams and plans as teenagers disappeared like dust blown by strong winds. My days were full of anger at myself until they were at the highest point that I couldn't handle it. I wanted to give up from life at that time, until I realized that someone was still waiting for me to go home. It's like waking up from a nightmare. In short, my mother was the reason why I survive and in silence I knew she always led me to heal these wounds.

I look back now and wonder how mom must have felt – I realize regretfully, I’d never asked. In those year, mom lost her most important person of her life. After those years, I remember saw my mom crying often. Sad, longing, lonely cries; as our single parents - My brother and me. It felt foreign to me - I cried, too, behind of her, sometimes, not knowing how else to sympathize.

Growing up, very tersely put, I was an emotional liability for my mom. I think any daughter can resonate when I say that our mother are our best friends, sisters, favorite people, our toughest critics, and also at times, our worst enemies. Our relationships encompass every possible aspect of good and bad. For us, I am as the eldest daughter in our family; I’m seemingly aloof at home, and I show affection in the oddest ways possible.

At 46, mom looks like what she is – a mother of two grown children, a mellow wife, and a woman who had spent most of her life providing. Despite the demeanor of a gentle woman, her skin began to wrinkle and her body began to weaken shows the years of giving, of enduring.  She seemed smaller than I always remembered her to be. She looks to me and my brother as steady sources of strength. She expects so little from this life and continues to amass the weight, as if she is not already overwhelmed. Her greatest wish in life is to delay her passing, enough so, to not leave my brother behind for me to care for alone. Sometimes, I find that unbearable.

This year, I gave my mom a card the day after Mother's day. Gift-giving always becomes an awkward moment between us (and it ended by brought tears to her eyes). I wish I could give her more, and I wish she would take it all without apology. I wish I could tell her that she has the right to dream, not for us, but for herself. I wish I can help her retrieve her youth and feel all the feelings again. I wish I can tell her, without reservation, that I love her. 

And maybe we’ll all never feel satisfied with the little we give back, but here is to trying. Behind every mother, there is a story of sacrifice and grace. 

Happy Mother’s Day, Mama. Every day should be yours.