Over the past two years, I've written very few articles about my mother. Like many of girls my age, I hate my mother's nagging. Unlike other girls, I can't do withour her caring. So I wrote an essay as follows. I hope you will be patient to read it, for it is quite long. :-) Never hesitate to tell me my weaknesses in my writing.
Jenny
***************** A Plant in My Heart
I hear Mother exclaiming in our balcony, as though she were to discover another New World: "Dear me!" I walk up to her. Don't my eyes play tricks on me? As she points to our poor jasmine, I see that on the top of the slim twig sprang up three little buds. How could that be! When the late fall came Mom "killed" all the twigs she thought would be worthless. Throughout the winter, Mom simply left it alone in the cold temperature on the balcony. She at most watered it a few times two weeks. After going through such a cruel circumstance, to our surprise, very soon the plant will show the value in its life by presenting us with its tiny petals and pretty scent. In spite of the tiny buds and the sparse leaves hanging in low spirits, isn't this the best reward for its "cruel" mistress? The snow is blazing in the early spring sun outside, so violently that it will hurt your eyes. Our jasmine is ready for its blossom, so fragile that even a blow of mild wind from outside will destroy the vitality. What a vivid contrary it is between the buds and the snow. If it wasn't for my careless mother, it would probably have gone to see God. Enjoying the gratitude, which the tenacious plant has knitted for Mother, somehow I feel hot on my face. A plant knows how to be grateful, why didn't I? On impulse I walk back to my room and open up Word 2000, the Pen of mine, to write an article for my dear mother. In fact, I have planned to make a point to write an article about my mother since I became interested in writing. I knew, however, based on my current writing skills the article would turn out to be a bad one because my mother is distinguished for nothing. A nice excuse, isn't it? But what is the excuse for? For a bad article? Or for Mother's "heartless" love? The first cry of a newly-born means a thread of affection for that a mother cares in all her life. There is no single way to measure how much sacrifice and contribution she needs, as to fertilizer and clear water for a plant's growth, to make her "second spirit" flourish. To this point, people regard the word "Mother" as a pronoun of "holiness". A good many articles beautifying mothers never stop emerging. I've read plenty of touching articles in this sort, but my mother doesn't seem so good as they do, since she is ordinary. She has no feature of empathy as mothers should have to their children and no of wisdom to steer her child, to say nothing of a broad bosom to be tolerant toward things around her. She is even mean to her daughter and hardly to show the kind of affection I've longed for. All this is because she received little education, and that made her a commonplace woman.
My memory draws me back to an incident years ago. Because I was in a special condition, I couldn't go to kindergarten to learn the things other children did. My mother, who always had the eagerness to excel others, decided to teach me time one day she was off work. A bed, a chair and a big round clock comprised a little classroom, in which the teacher was Mother and the pupil Daughter. Be it because of my dull head or the bad way my mother taught, at last I didn't acquire the correct way of saying time. All of the sudden my mother's hot temper got erupted. Thus, the class ended up being filled with my tears and her harsh words. That night Mother left home for work with anger and disappointment. I asked my good-natured father despondently, "Am I really too dull to learn it?" Seeing his sweetheart's confidence broken apart, he took the turn being my teacher. He succeeded! So did I! That proved I was a bright girl, and my mother was wrong! :-) Since then my father and I have been using this incident as an example to defeat Mother from time to time. She always laughs with us when we do so. I don't know how many times such incidents happened in my life, but I do know I did learn something from her scolding. That is: How to deal with discouragement and setbacks. My mother is indeed a good teacher in this point. I grew up as my tolerance of mother's arbitrariness grew smaller. The special figure of my arms has had its charm to catch passersby's eye all the time when I walk on the street. I knew I couldn't change it in a short period of time, so I had made myself accustomed to this treatment few people can enjoy. I, however, concerning about my mother's feelings, was not quite relaxed when people looked at me. It was only one thing that haunted in my heart. It was also the only thing that set off the long-lasting "battle" between Mother and Daughter. One day in the summer, 2002, when I walked on the street with my "adversary", "the thing" hanged over my head again. Soon the harsh word from Mother blasted its way to my ear: "Say what you can do! You get tense by simply walking on the street! You'll become nothing! Nothing!" I could bear no more. Suddenly, I yelled at her at my full energy, too bluntly for me to care about where I was. Immediately, all the people turned to look at the furious daughter and the astonished mother standing there transfixed. Just then I noticed something that hurt me racing through my mother's eyes. I freed my hand from her grip and ran homeward and escaped her eyes. Her scolding, my anger, and my self-blame seemed to be melted away as I ran. One thing, however, that could neither be melted nor could I escaped from, was the hurt I threw to my mother. A few days later when Mom mentioned it, she simply said, "Did you know that you were in danger? What if you stumbled or ran across vehicles?" My mother, whose attitudes are quite negative, often ruins my hope using rough remarks like: "God knows my sin in my previous life, so He punished me now!" Comments like this, which often made me feel I owe her so much, are her vibration of life, as well as her regret bringing me to this world. It seems that all of the so-called miseries I've experienced were made by her. It brings me heartache and helplessness. I should be grateful, however, that I haven't been influenced by her poor attitude that had her blamed on every thing. My perception is that learning to accept this seemingly unfortunate life gives you more room for optimism. I regard it as something that relieves me. I try hard to tell Mother my idea, but she was so far away from tolerance to accept it. Yet, I wonder, in all these years what is her spiritual support to take care of her daughter who has the disability? Mother's rough words have been less effective since the Internet took its roots in my life, for I can pour my troubles into some friends' email boxes. :-) A good friend of mine, who has been giving me comfort and advice over the past two years, even understands me better than my mother does. I sometimes complained loudly in my heart that why my mother is unable to enjoy life, to understand others, and to read my thoughts in a way my friend does. "You can hardly change someone. Only can you change your way to adjust the person" is her remark. I realized in a moment that as I grew up, from cries in my childhood to conflict in my teenage years, all covered up with a purpose that to force my mother to change the way I wanted to. When I did all these things, I had neglected the most single important thing: It's Mother who gave me life. It's she who bore the brutal fact. It's she who put me in her embrace to comfort me. It's she who gave up her job to pay maintenance efforts for me. I asked her about her dreams several times, and her replies are exactly the same. "My only hope is see you able to take good care of yourself. Otherwise I will not be able to close my eyes when I die." Accompanied by my wonderful mother, why on earth do I need to change her into a remarkable woman? When I was little, Mother spent all her spare time reading stories for me. At the time she was so learned that there was no Chinese character she didn't know. Now she reads very slowly, as if she were to eat word by word with her eyes. I often joke that she is "Mrs. Know-nothing" when she reads out load. Combined with the accent from her hometown, she reads tardily, with occasional pauses in where she gets stuck. When bumping into a word she doesn't know, she just takes a guess by the way it looks. Sometimes, if time allows her, she will stop to look it up in our dictionary. Family chores are the very factor in causing her "illiterate". She is busy preparing for three meals with wild variety every day. Her good cooking has led me to being picky and my friends to praising her with their thumbs up. Along with cleaning and caring for me, she has little time to sit reading a book. Though her complaint and nagging, too, have become a part of her daily life, is there woman who repeats the same daily rituals for over 18 years and doesn't attend any "luxury" activities? As a housewife who stays at home all the time, Mother seems very chary, and sometimes, timid and suspicious. She doesn't believe in friendship, for she is afraid to suffer losses and to be cheated. She dares not to go downtown all by herself, for she is worried about being lost and running into unexpected matters. She will not walk down some desert street in our area at early night, for she assumes such a quiet place is best for robbers to take action. But, when I was an infant, she took the pills to that I had allergy to test herself. Now, when my friends pay visits, she acts very generous with her hospitality to make a joyful atmosphere for her daughter. She has few friends because the situation doesn't allow her to. Throughout the years she juggled her family with her work, she often got tired but was happy with chitchats with her co-workers. Since she retired in the early forties, she has been accompanied by the radio and the TV set when I study and my father goes to work. I try to persuade her going to find some friends, but she replies, "Who will do all the family chores if I go out to play? I'll go if you do." Despite staying at home all day, she doesn't seem to be lonely, because she "got used to it." As I am writing this, Mother, in her late forties, stands at the balcony enjoying her "fragrant reward" with her hands in her back. She is plump, and has a medium height. Wrinkles and liver spots have crept onto her slightly ruddy face. The bridge of her nose doesn't look like as high as it is because it sits right between her bulgy, broad cheeks. She tightens her lips and eyes the flower buds, as if she is about to say, "See? This is my effort paying off!" Maybe our jasmine didn't think for a moment her mistress mistreated it. Cutting worthless twigs and the cold temperature were just for it to grow better the next year. Compared to some other plants with gorgeous flowers, the flower of jasmine is tasteless. Yet, without hope of receiving praise or reward, it extends its faint scent to its own world. Even though the world is only a small balcony, it is heartily content, because it comes out of ordinary.
