I heard the excitment in Mom’s voice over the phone the other day when I called to tell her that I would be coming up for lunch.
As soon as I turned up, Mom started to try to make me feel at home by telling me things that she guessed I might be interested, at the same time preparing the meal in the kitchen. My little brother’s injury was recovering for one. She met with a friend couple of mine in a teahouse the other morning for another. And some more which I failed to percieve because of a little boredom. However, I did try my best to show my interest by uttering some succint responses.
Mom had apparently finished with her cooking, when she put out a box on a chair.
“Ching Ming Festival is coming soon. Your father told me to buy something good-looking for him to wear, and the other day I came across these in the market. I bought them right away. Do they look OK?” She raised something like packs of man’s wear into the air in an obvious attempt to fetch my attention.
“Oh, I see.”
I had not. Not until she added on and said,”Look how real they look. You would never believe they are paper until you touch them.”
“Yes. Yes.” I accorded. “They are just terrific!” I was stricken to a loss of thoughts by the way she mentioned Dad.
Dad had died more than 2 decades ago.
They were one of those many sad couples in the feudal days when marriages were arbitrarily arranged by parents. Dad was the King at home except that he had to work very hard to maintain the livelihood of the whole family, which boasted of 9 mouths. Mom worked even harder. Her time was fully filled with house chores, in and out.
They have never been intimate to each other since my memory began. Dad would seldom spoke gently to Mom. He seldom spoke to anyone actually. We, the six of us, as children would never dare to show any sign of disobedience under his rule.
Probably–I was never told the truth–because of the enduring stress, Mom and Dad often broke into acute quarrels. Mom tried to reclaim her justice with shouting and Dad would keep his mouth shut as long as he could. And we would just try our best to hide from the curious eyes of the neighbors.
Under such fights went our childhood.
Things changed a bit when Dad was contracted with cancer. Mom eased up her strand very much and served her duty as best as she could as a caring wife of a sick husband. During the decade before my dad finally passed away, the atmosphere of the family took to a calmer turn.
Mom did cry with tears when Dad died, though not totally out of sadness apparently. Life has become easier with her since then, under the care of her grown up children. Dad was not much mentioned whence except on special days such as Ching Ming Festival. Life went on.
Over the past few years, Mom would, now and then, relate to us about her dreams in which Dad appeared and spoke to her. I always took it light and attributed it to her superstition.
However, her uttering just now seemed to enlighten me to a subtle change in her attitude towards Dad. The long borne hatred had somehow been evened out by time and was gradually replaced by affectionate thoughts of a person with whom her life had entwined for so long.
I was so amazed at my enlightened understanding that I just sat there and looked at the paper offerings in a haze.
