Dear Mom,
When I was in sixth grade, my teacher arranged an activity where we wrote letters to our parents. I no longer remember what I wrote back then. A few days later, though, I received your reply. It was not a long letter, but every line was filled with your love for me and the hopes you quietly carried.
Today is Mother’s Day in 2023. I want to finally write back to the letter I have kept for sixteen years.
Every time I go home, I check to see whether that letter is still there. I have taken it out and read it again more than once. What moved me most was that you told me the real reason you did not want me to grow up. When I was younger, I often guessed at other people’s thoughts from a selfish place. I thought you did not want me to grow up because you were afraid of getting old.
Only after reading your reply did I understand that what you feared was not aging, but separation.
Before I went to university, you told me to treasure the time I had with my family, because the older I became, the less time we would have together. I understood those words then, at least on the surface. But it was only after spending ten years away in Shanghai that I truly felt their weight.
I have come to realize that I am, in fact, someone who misses home deeply. Annie and I both long for the day when we can bring this chapter to an end and return to Chongqing, back to a life that feels warm, familiar, and comfortable. There have even been times when I cried in my dreams because I could not go home.
For a long time, I wanted to struggle forward, test the limits of what I could do, and chase my ideals at almost any cost. But in recent years, I have started to think more seriously about the relationship between the goal and the price paid for it. I no longer know whether it is worth giving up time with family for something so uncertain and distant. Suddenly, I feel very tired. I just want to go home and be by your side.
As people grow older, they become more concerned with saving face. It becomes harder to say sentimental things as freely as we did when we were children. Since growing up, I do not think I have ever said anything as direct as “I want to stay with Mom,” the way I once might have written in a letter. I cannot seem to say it out loud, but that does not mean I have never thought it.
I have never been good with words, and I often do not know how to express what I feel. But I have always cared about you, Dad, and everyone in the family. I worry about your health and how you are doing. That is why, whenever the New Year comes, I would rather stay at home than go somewhere else on vacation.
I have grown up now. You no longer need to worry about me the way you used to. In another sense, it is time for me to use what I have learned to give something back to you. I understand that you may be afraid of interrupting my work, but if something happens, please still tell me or ask me about it. Perhaps that way, we can find a better solution together.
As I said, I am not very good at expressing myself. But words on a page can still carry what I feel for you and for our family.
In the end, I know that in your eyes, I will always be a child. But in my eyes, you will always be my young and beautiful mother.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Ajie
May 14, 2023
