When I was in elementary school, I suffered from a cough. My mother took me to many doctors and bought a lot of medicine, but the doctor said that it would take three months to get well even with medicine. But my mom didn’t believe me, she asked for all kinds of prescriptions and gave me medicine every day, watching me cough until I couldn’t eat, and she felt worse than me. The medicine really didn’t help much, and after three months, I started to recover slowly, but my mother was so tired that she became ill. Whenever I think back to that lingering memory, I wonder, if my illness took three years to heal, would my mother have had to take care of me in fear for three years, or what if it had been ten years? What about a lifetime? Would my mom still be there for me and take care of me? Yes, she will, because she is a mother.
When I was ten years old, I won first place in an essay contest. My mother, who was young at the time, rushed to tell me about herself, saying that she had to do even better essays as a child, and the teacher didn’t even believe that she could have written something that good. “The teacher found the family and asked if the adults in the family had helped. I probably wasn’t even ten years old then. “I was so bummed to hear that I deliberately laughed: “Maybe? What do you mean maybe not yet? “She then explained. I pretended not to pay attention to her words at all anymore and played ping pong against the wall, which pissed her off enough. But I admit she’s smart and acknowledge that she’s the best-looking female in the world. She was making herself a dress with a blue ground and white flowers.
At twenty, both of my legs were crippled. I thought I should do something else besides painting eggs, and changed my mind a few times before I finally wanted to learn to write. My mother was not young then, and for my legs, she started to get gray hair on her head. The hospital had made it clear that there was no cure for my illness at the moment. But my mother’s whole heart was still focused on curing me, looking for doctors, asking for prescriptions, and spending a lot of money. She could always find some strange and exotic medicine for me to eat, drink, or wash, compress, smoke, or moxibustion. “Don’t waste your time! It’s useless! ” I said. All I could think about was writing my novel, as if that stuff could save the disabled from their plight. “Try it again. How do you know it won’t work unless you try it? ” she said each time religiously holding on to hope. Yet with my leg, there were as many times of hope as there were times of disappointment. The last time, my crotch was smoked into burns. The doctor at the hospital said it was too much of a risk and that it was almost fatal for a paralyzed patient. I wasn’t too scared, I thought it would be good to die, it would be a pleasure to die. My mother was terrified for several months, watching over me day and night, saying as soon as the medicine was changed, “How could it have burned? I’ve been paying attention! Fortunately, the wound healed, otherwise she would have gone crazy.
Later she found out that I was writing a novel. She said to me, “Then write it well. “I could hear that she was finally desperate to cure my leg, too. “I loved literature most when I was young, too. “She said. “When I was about the same age as you are now, I also thought about getting into writing. “She said. “Didn’t you win first place in your essays when you were a kid? ” she reminded me. We both did our best to put my legs out of my mind. She went around borrowing books for me, pushing me to the movies in the rain or in the snow, holding out hope the way she used to find me a doctor and inquire about prescriptions.
At the age of thirty, my first novel was published, but my mother was no longer alive. A few years later, another novel won a prize, and my mother had already left me for seven years.
After the award, more journalists came to my door. Everyone was kind and thought it was not easy for me. But I had only prepared one set of words, and I felt distracted after talking about it. I rocked out of the car and sat in the quiet woods of a small park, thinking: Why did God call my mother back so early? For a long, long time, in a daze, I heard the answer: “Her heart was too bitter. God saw that she could not bear it anymore, so He called her back. My heart was a little comforted, and I opened my eyes, and saw the wind passing through the woods.
I swung my car out of there and wandered the streets, not wanting to go home.
After my mother died, we moved. I seldom went to the little house where my mother lived. The small courtyard was at the end of a large courtyard, and I occasionally rode my car to the large courtyard, but I didn’t want to go to the small courtyard, saying that it was inconvenient to go in with a handcart. The old ladies in the courtyard still see me as their children and grandchildren, especially when they think that I have lost my mother, but they don’t say anything, they just gossip and blame me for not going there often. I sat in the middle of the courtyard, drinking tea from the East and eating melons from the West. One year, people finally mentioned my mother again: “Go to the small yard to see, your mother planted that acacia tree this year blooming! I was shaking in my heart, but pushed to say that it was too difficult to get in and out of the hand-cranked car. The group stopped talking, busy talking about something else, about the house we used to live in now live a small two, the woman just gave birth to a son, the child does not cry, just staring at the window of the tree.
I didn’t realize that the tree was still alive. That year, my mother went to the labor bureau to find a job for me, and when she returned, she dug up a “mimosa” on the side of the road, thinking it was a mimosa, and planted it in a pot, but it was a Acacia tree. My mother never liked those things, but her mind was elsewhere at the time. The next year, the Acacia tree did not sprout, my mother sighed once, but did not want to throw it away, still let it grow in the pot. The third year, the Acacia tree grew leaves and flourished. The mother was happy for many days and thought it was a good omen, and often went to tend to it, not daring to be careless. After another year, she moved the Acacia out of its pot and planted it in the ground in front of the window, sometimes chanting, “I wonder how many years this tree will take to bloom. After another year, we moved, and the grief made us forget about the little tree.
Instead of wandering the streets, I thought, why not just go see that tree? I also wanted to see the room where my mother had lived again. I always remembered that there was a child who had just come into the world, not crying, not staring at the shadow of the tree. Is it the shadow of the Acacia tree? There was only that tree in the small courtyard.
The old ladies in the courtyard welcomed me as usual, pouring tea in the east room, lighting cigarettes in the west room, and bringing them to my eyes. They didn’t know about my award, or maybe they did, but they didn’t think it was important; still, they all asked about my legs and whether I had an official job. This time, it was impossible to swing the car into the small courtyard. The kitchenette in front of each house was enlarged, and the aisles were so narrow that a person had to turn sideways even when pushing a bicycle in and out. I asked about the Acacia tree. The guys said it blooms every year and grows to the height of the house. So, I can’t see it anymore. If I ask someone to carry me to see it, it’s not impossible. I regret that I didn’t go in the car by myself two years ago.
I took my time walking down the street with my car, not in a hurry to get home. Sometimes people just want to be alone for a while. Sadness also becomes enjoyable.
One day when that child grows up, he will remember his childhood, the swaying shadows of the trees, and his own mother. He will run to see that tree. But he will not know who planted that tree and how it was planted.
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