In a few months, I would become a mother
myself. Drove to her home, eager to spend
the day with my own mother. Tried to ignore
the deepening crevices in her face, arthritic
knuckles that still pounded dough to make
dumplings for others. Late afternoon, we perched
upon her kitchen stools, sipped chrysanthemum tea.
Her voice was quiet as she recalled leaving her dear mother
decades ago, toddler on hip, for a new life overseas. An unspoken goodbye that shimmered like silk between them. Sorrow distorted her face, the words strangled in her throat: Lao Lao, your grandma, had shuffled from room to room, stunned into silence, the roar of this impending
distance already drowning out my pleas for her to somehow understand. I was leaving her, perhaps forever. Her fingers had trembled as she gifted me a parcel containing two homemade qipao dresses and three tiny outfits for you –
a toddler who would grow up without ever knowing her grandma.
I watched my mom as she sat in her kitchen, shoulders slumped.
I could see how this loss broke something in her. Still, I made
no move to embrace her. Apathy bloomed in my folded arms
and shifty eyes, a feeble attempt to shield myself
from her palpable pain. Didn’t realize that I would be steeped in it
a mere few months later. Didn’t quite know then how to measure the distance between these wounded souls spinning out, unsure
of which direction was ‘home’ and unable to turn back.
In this tale of three mothers, I now see the steadfast thread
of Your handiwork stitching together burdened hearts
spanning seas, lands, the spaces between. It was Your grace
that carried us — and only with You, did we each learn surrender.
