i'm lost in translation

Memories of my Mother

Four years ago, I lost my mother to cancer…sometimes I realize it's changed my life in ways that I couldn't have imagined. I may have not have had the strength or courage to accomplish what I've done so far - it may have been the best thing that has ever happened to me.

My mother was an extremely strong woman. She had married an American man and moved to the United States away from her country and family to start a new life. She did not love the man she married; she simply thought it was time for her to be married. She had been struck by the beautiful children that had come from mixed couples she had seen in Taiwan and thought that she would like a child just as beautiful. She married my father, who was in the Air Force, even though my grandparents didn't really approve. When she first arrived in California from Taiwan, my mother and father settled in at the Air Force base. Soon my mother got pregnant and started looking for a job, my father didn’t make enough money to really support them both (at least in the eyes of my mother). Her first job in the United States was working at Dunkin’ Donuts.

Soon I was born, the only child from their marriage, and my grandmother immediately flew over from Taiwan to help raise me. Things were not great between my mother and father, she had a dislike for the way he handled about everything and he had an abusive streak. My father finished his service in the Air Force and decided to move to Florida. My mother was finished with my father after four years of marriage and decided not to join him. My mother filed for divorce and decided to start a business in New York. She agreed to let me stay with my father while she set herself up in New York. For a while my aunt, grandmother and grandfather stayed with my father and myself while we lived in Daytona Beach, Florida. But at some point my father’s temper flared and after an incident that I don’t remember that clearly except for my grandfather’s bloody head and the police being called – my aunt and grandfather left Florida. My grandmother remained behind to protect me.

At some point my mother established a life in New York and came to get me, but my father asked me if I’d rather go with him to Pittsburgh and see my grandma or go to “scary” New York….it was an unfair choice for a 5-year-old. Especially because of the fact that I was terrified to say no to my father and his infamous temper. So, I left my heartbroken mother behind and went with my father to Pittsburgh – where he discovered he couldn’t afford to take care of me on his own and he shipped me off to my mother in New York.

posted by Jin @ 4:51 PM