Perserverance

I pray that one day I will be able to write eloquently enough to tell the world the story my mother. A dazzling, powerful, amazing story of the most beautiful person in the world.

At 8, she had given up her dreams and education to support her family. At 20, she had given her childhood to support me. There are no words to describe how privileged and spoiled my brother and I have become with this American lifestyle. We know not what pain is, what work is, what waking up early in the morning as a child and going to the market to sell food for hours is. My definition of hard work was Wendys. There is never any mention or complaint of the unselfishness mommy and pops goes through daily to give us the life we have. Yet sometimes I am busy comparing myself to a Colby kid and what they have; not realizing that I have what so many people wish for, a true relationship with the most amazing and loving person in the world. The person who gave me life; the person I could never do enough to repay.

Today mother gave us the $100 she had been saving up, so we could go the mall and finish the last of our Christmas shopping for our cousins. The money left over was for us. We spent 50 on them, 11 on food, fake earings, socks and tights. It was gone without us ever thinking twice about it. The lunch money Peter gets every week; the occassional trips to the buffet, family pictures, the insistance of long hours and hard work, so that we have enough, we're loved enough, we live well enough, that we don't feel somehow inferior to the rest of the world, so that we can go the school confident in our abilities and compete. All of this into us, because Mom and Dad and Grandma- they don't have that chance anymore. They raise us to be strong, to articulate, to write well, to respect elders, to be great-- but I am not and could never be as unselfish as and as great as my mother.

I marvel at her smile and constant sense of humor; I've never felt pain for a day in my life. I don't know what it is; so I gravitate towards those who have it, towards those who are troubled, to understand them, to heal them, to be hurt a little bit so that I know what strength is. I've never felt pain a day in my life.

Children fantacise about Superman, and atheletes, and singers- if one day I could give my all to my family in the way she does, have my children love me as much as hers do, shrug off pain and allow myself to love the way she does- I would be the most blessed woman in the world.

Daddy is sooo street smart and Mommy is soooo strong, so unafraid of being herself, being a Tomboy, being fearless- constantly being honest, constantly loving-- and Peter and I, we are book smart but in the realm of real life, we could learn so much from our parents. The idea of work ethic, the idea that beauty comes from the inside, the idea that no one can tell us what we can and cannot accomplish, the idea that we must perservere, but most of all the idea that we must appreciate one another and see all the love we've been given, because family and friends are all we have. We can measure ourselves by material possessions to see how middle class we are compared to others, or we can count our blessings and see what our lives are truly worth.

One day I will be able to write eloquently enough to tell the life story of my mother, with excerpts about Grandma Noi, Grandma Ngoai, and Poppa. But no words are eloquent enough to describe how much I love her.