One Week After...
Sunday, February 22, 2004
It was about the same time last week, I made my weekly call to mom and started the normal five minutes conversation. It quickly upsetted me as soon as Mom began to tell the same old theory and successful life stories. I responded with impolite impatience and requested Mom to treat me more like an adult and respect my understanding of the society and life. However, deep inside, I knew i am avoiding issues and all I did was to try not to let them scrutinize my life no matter how much I do want them to get close to me.
After so many years of drifting away unwillingly, Mom called for my return. She complained that I don't tell them anything happening and all she can do is to guess what's going on here in the States and worry about whatever I did not confide to them. Her voice cracked as she spoke and her tear brought me back at that moment and make me realized again how much she missed me and cared about me. I miss them too. I am such a sucker in telling them how I feel. In addition to the burden I have on the back for so many years, I couldn't contain myself any more. In a period of one minute, Mom kept crying out to let me tell her and I kept saying I would tell her if I am ready. Mom is always a brave women and she has been the one who hold our family together and take all the responsibility she can or cannot afford on her own. The hardship in her life has made her so strong and she vowed she was ready for whatever I wanted to say to her... So I did it, without any delicate planning and worrying about the consequences. There goes the truth...
"You are my son, I love you no matter what you do. "After a long pause, she still couldn't believe what I just confided to her is what kept us apart. I have no idea what was gonna happen. She sounded confused and didn't know what to respond. But she love me and she said, "You are my son, I love you no matter what you do. I just hope you have a healthy life." I assured her everything is fine in my life and I am dealing with issues like everybody else. There is nothing to worry about if she understand what I just said, I meant truly understand it.
This converstation lasted 62 minutes--from 2:04AM to 3:06AM on Feb 15, 2004, about 57 minutes longer than our normal shorter and shorter phone converstation. By the time Mom hang up the phone, we were both in tears for about an hour. The rest of the night is restless. I was worrying how well she was taking it but I knew it wouldn't be a good idea to talk to her so fast before she digest all that. So I picked up cell phone and scroll down the phone book trying to find someone to talk to. No one appropriate came up on the screen. So I called Xiaodong back in Beijing and he was caught in a bad time to talk. He promised to talk to me on Monday when he got back to town. After that, I decided to take some rest and try my best to go to slepe even if I thought that was impossible.
I didn't know and still don't know exactly what I was feeling at that moment after I dumped everything out. A relief I was longing? I wasn't feeling it. Sad? It's not exactly what I felt either. Excitement? I was way too worried about the consequences and didn't have time and luxury to get excited. I was asked about this question on Monday the 16th and the only thing I can say was that I didn't know exactly and it was werid. Indeed it is.
The rest of the week is spent on designing and coding the website for a small business in Nashville. I felt the fun working on things so much and I didn't get eager to go home as usual. My analysis about the excitement came down to avoidence. I try so hard not to think about what just happened. Focusing on the work really did the trick and I went to sleep like a baby after the first day's work. This week flies by fast...
It's saturday again. I spent the whole day with Crowder's fixing their garage. I had lots of fun playing with the nail gun and other modern machine tools that I saw many times before but never touched. After a few hours team work, we got a fabulous wooden stairs. Although I only did some minor things, it's great to hang out with friends and see the beauty of carpenter work.
Mom just want me to be happy. That touched me so deeply and I can feel her love 7000 miles across the pacific ocean.When night came, I hesitated to call Mom for a few hours. I didn't know what to say, but at the same time, I want to know how she is doing after all the chaos. I finally sat down and called her. She didn't sound good. Mom has been taking herbal medicines in the past week and that worries me. I knew I might have made a mistake to confide to her and apparently she got ill because of that. She quickly began to cry and tell me how much she wish me well and she will respect what I can do with my life. Mom just want me to be happy. That touched me so deeply and I can feel her love 7000 miles across the pacific ocean. I wish her well too and tell her to take care of her health and not worry about me because I'm doing well. I can tell she was hurt a lot and she was ready to hang up after a while. But she remind me again that she loves me dearly and she don't care about anything else if only I'm doing good. I felt the same way to her truly. With all this happening, I hope the family will get over it soon, if not too soon.
Dad was still upset but I cannot really communicate with him because he is unwilling to go there. I have no idea how to help him to understand it yet but I do hope Mom and sister will have some influence on him. Cross my fingers.
What happened in the past week is so unexpected in many ways. It's been too long before all this happened. All came so fast that nobody was ready for it. As everybody says time will heal everything, I hope it is true and become true to us as soon as possible.
Posted at February 22, 2004 in Thoughts
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