Happy Mother’s Day 2009
Dear Mama,
Happy Mother’s Day! I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done. Before I recount the many thanks I want to recount the many sorry’s that I owe you when I was a kid. Yeah, it’s been a real long time, but here it is…
• Sorry for refusing to eat dinner when you got me upset. I knew it would concern you that I didn’t eat. That was a kid’s way of getting back at you for not letting me play as much as I would have liked.
• Sorry for always messing with my little brother and making him upset and cry. That must have stressed you out seeing me pick on him so much.
• Sorry for stealing your rare coins and using them to buy stickers.
• Sorry for lying about how much I actually spent on baseball cards. I grossly underestimated the amount for fear of getting whopped.
• Sorry for breaking everything in the living room. I just couldn’t sit still for too long.
• Sorry for getting sick so much.
• Sorry for not keeping my promises. I brought my Transformer to school even though I told you I wouldn’t… only to have my friend break it. This led to a parent-teacher conference. All my fault.
• Sorry that most of my attempts at humor didn’t seem that funny to you. I must have gotten my sense of humor from Papa.
• Sorry about lying about the snacks I ate. I knew you were looking out for me when I shouldn’t have been eating raw Ramen noodles.
• Sorry for being so tired all of a sudden when you asked me to help with chores. I should have helped you more.
OK. Now for the “thank you” list…
• Thanks for disciplining me when I was a disobedient little boy. There’s no knowing what kind of trouble I’d be in today if you hadn’t instilled the fear of the rod (or I should say that chicken feather stick). A few of those sticks snapped on my toosh, but that’s another story.
• Thanks for teaching me to save money. If you hadn’t I would have splurged on video games, baseball cards, and stickers to no end. Who knows where my splurging would have stopped if I ever got started.
• Thanks for modeling perseverance for me. You being able to put up with difficult people and circumstances have kept our family afloat. You bought time for me to weather life’s storms and learn perseverance.
• Thanks for providing a safe environment for me to grow up in.
• Thanks for remembering special occasions. I still remember you buying me a birthday cake when I was in Pre-K to celebrate with my classmates. I didn’t realize how special those times were until many years later.
• Thanks for getting me supplementary educational workbooks. That was not exactly the kind of gifts I wanted, but I knew your intentions were noble.
• Thanks for teaching me how to tie my shoes. I’m glad I finally learned though it was complicated.
• Thanks for teaching me some Mandarin.
• Thanks for making sure I always wore enough layers of clothes. I was always warm.
• Thanks for cooking at least 15,000 meals for me. Yeah, it’s been that many.
• Thanks for let me convince you not to force me to go to Chinese language school when I was in 4th grade. That made my childhood much easier to bear.
• Thanks for cutting out cardboard to make flashcards for me to learn new words. I think I’ve finally mastered them all.
• Thanks for cutting out the Sunday comic strips and creating a booklet out of them. I wasn’t so good at cutting straight.
• Thanks for having my little brother and sister. I wouldn’t have had anyone to boss around otherwise. My leadership skills would have taken much longer to develop.
• Thanks for picking me up from school every day. It sure beats taking the Muni.
• Thanks for taking me to China even though I resisted the idea. I’ve since fallen in love with China.
• Thanks for trying to teach me to be practical. Somehow I haven’t become too practical, but rather idealistic, which means my ideas end up not working. Perhaps one day I’ll move to the practical camp.
Mama, thank you. You mean more than you’ll ever know. God couldn’t have provided a better mother for me.
I love you, Mama.
