Ideas to Inspire

She sewed my bunny costume

and watched me tap dance at Chinese school.

She held me in her lap when I confessed,

downcast, that Santa was a sham.

Both of us sat silent at dinnertimes

during my father’s tantrums.

She called up Sheryl’s mom once

to arrange my date for a sophomore dance.

With one hiss she used to scold me

for staying up too late to watch TV.

In the car she told me how

she told her friends that Jesus was her Lord.

These are the memories I have of her–

a mother and her young son,

one giving love, the other always receiving,

though not without protest.

We had no long discusions

about the woman that I would marry,

about the days I wore my hair long,

or about China and its revolutions.

I did not share whith her my opinions

on whether there is a life after death,

or whether the real estate market in Hawaii

will continually go up.

She never got a chance to hear me

speak to her in Cantonese

or to hug my skinny daughter.

I never found out why she loved my father so.

When I visit her grave

I ama a child again, forever.

I would not have it any other way.

–Wing Tek Lum, Bamboo Ridge, no. 60, winter 1994