I will always love my mother…
Today I find myself very frustrated with my lack of eloquence, because despite trying and again, I simply cannot put into words all the things I really want to say. I want to share with all of you her many great qualities, and to capture her essence with my sentences, and for a brief moment bring her back to life with my words.
However as I was drafting what I wanted to say today, after, much brainstorming, and procrastinating, starting, stopping, writing and rewriting, I have concluded perhaps it is simply not possible for me to use mere words to describe all that I want to say about my mother. Given that, I apologize in advance for perhaps not doing her justice with my somewhat simple sounding words.
Initially I wanted enumerate all the wonderful qualities of my mom. I wanted to share her brilliance, her smile, her wisdom, her perpetual neatness, her sense of responsibility, her love of Chinese food, and her good cooking. To be fair I wanted to also list a few of her flaws, because like any human of course she was not perfect. However, despite my many swirling ideas, I could not pin a single one down. Because for me the two things about her that truly fills my heart and mind is how much she loved me and how much she cared about me (and possibly a third thing, how much I will always miss her).
Hence, before I can say anything else, the first and most important and perhaps most obvious thing I have to say is that, I love my mother, and I know that wherever she is she loves me too. And with that I am relieved, because I know no matter what I say, I am confident that my mom would be satisfied.
My mom loved me so much and because of that I guess in retrospect, I regret, in many ways I took my mother for granted. In happy times when things were going well and I was having fun, I would frequently want to hang out with my friends. Sometimes, if I was having a lot of fun, I would forget to call home or stay out quite late. Invariably, on occasions like these, the later it got, the more likely I would start receiving calls from my mom chiding me to go home and to get to bed. I am going to be honest and say, at the time I was almost always annoyed, but even then I knew, even though they annoyed me, those were just another one of the countless ways my mom cared and loved about me. As much as those calls annoyed me, I sometimes think of myself, how much I wish I could get just one more call like that from her.
My mom was one person I could always count on. Whereas when things were going well or smoothly, I usually chose to hang out with my friends. If things were not going well, my mom was always one of the first people I would turn to. If I was sick I knew my mom would do all the little things it took to help me get better. Even if it were very late at night, she would come in time and again to check on me and make sure I was ok. Even as I got to Stanford, frequently if I got ill, I would still tell my mom, because she always knew the little things to do to make me feel immediately better. Though of course, as I started feeling better, I would invariably face a somewhat stern lecture on how I needed to be more responsible and take better care of myself. I guess my mom was a strong believer in tough love.
When things were not going well for me I knew I could always tell her and somehow things would become better. Because I knew that no matter what I did my mom would not love or care about me any less. And for at least one person, no matter how I failed or what happened, I would not be judged. Perhaps, more practically, when I was younger, was younger, if I did badly on a test it was of strategic importance to tell my mom first. Because then she could always pass on the news to my dad first, so my dad would be slightly less angry than if I told him directly.
I suppose if I have a lifetime’s full of anecdotal stories of how much my mom loved me, because just about everything she did for me, be it her scolding or her codling were all acts of her love. This past year since my dad was diagnosed with cancer, has been without doubt and without even close comparison the most difficult time in my life, and perhaps the most difficult time my family has had to endure together. The news of my dad’s illness quite hard, but the news hit my mom much harder. Whereas, when I heard the news, in my heart I thought, no matter what happens my mom will be there to help me through it, my mom was burdened with both losing her partner for life, as well as suddenly having to shoulder all the responsibility for the family. While dealing with the possible loss of my father, my mom also wanted to protect me, and initially hid the news from me, and also tried to not to have me worry too much. In those darkest few days, both of my parents agreed to insist that I continue going to Stanford as so I would not be distracted and so I could continue my studies.
My father’s illness was something my mom had great trouble dealing with, because perhaps this was a time, when one of my mom’s greatest strengths was turned against her. Her love for my father, and well as her love for me, made the whole situation simply unbearable for her. The prospect of losing my father made it such that she could not picture what happiness her future could bring. Between sadness, stress, and anxiety my mom sank into depression.
My mom’s depression was very difficult for me to deal with because it changed her completely. There were times when she would say things that I simply could not understand, and believe things that puzzled me how she could believe. There were times I was so frustrated because I felt at a time I needed her more than ever, she was not there to help me. I think I grew up a lot when I realized I could not count on my mom forever. Over the course of this year I had slowly tried to shoulder more of the responsibility of the family, though regrettably I think I’ve done somewhat of a poor job.
There are times when I regret and when I say what if, and I wonder if I were stronger, if I was more mature sooner, and if I had not relied and counted on my mom so much, and taken her for granted if everything would have turned out different. At these moments my thoughts start spinning really quickly, and I get very agitated, but before long one thought always settles and calms me down.
Through it all my mother loved me, she loved me very much, and I know she will always forgive me and not blame me. Wherever, she is now, I am confident that she would not want me to feel overly sad and distracted from school and my life and future. Because I know no matter what she would want me to be happy and to be strong.
Earlier, I said my mom changed completely, I think I need to clarify myself. Despite her many changes in attitude and personality, the one thing that never changed was how much she cared about me. Through it all, although she was limited by her abilities still tried her best to care for me. Whereas she had troubling cooking for herself when she was by herself, if I went home, she would always try her best to at least cook something to make sure I had something to eat. She would frequently lament and apologize how she couldn’t do something for me that she wanted to do, and how she wished she could help me more. I called her every night, and just about every night she would remind me to eat breakfast, get lots of sleep, do not stress too much, drink lots of water, and get a physical (she wanted to make sure I was healthy).
Despite having trouble taking care of herself and indeed sometimes lacking the desire to take care of herself, she never stopped trying to take care of me. No matter what happened to her, she always cared about me.
There are a lot of things my mom did that as of today I cannot necessarily say I understand. There are a lot of details that I have trouble recalling, and I have a lot of memories of her that I have difficulty revisiting because it is still too painful for me. However, what I can say is, today, to me there is only one important thing for me to know and for me to remember. And that is what I said at the very beginning. My mom always loved and cared about me, and I will always love my mother.
SpeechMom.doc