Personal Narrative: I Am My Mother's Unresolved Heartaches

I have finally signed and notarized the divorce settlement in my attorney’s office. I was overcome by different emotions and wished my mother was still living so she can see that I was not reliving her story. I thought about our circumstances and the choices we made that led us both to unhappy marriages. We may appear the same, but it was the intricate differences that made us unique and chose different paths for ourselves.

We both had married insensitive partners; however, we dealt with the hostile relationships differently. She accepted her fate and suffered silently; I fought with all my might and retaliated loudly. Despite our differences, my mother and I shared the same guilt for we had inflicted pain and disappointment onto our children as we became increasingly discontent with our lives.

My mother was born in Canton, China to a well-regarded herbalist and a merchant’s daughter. Her family employed nannies and wet nurses to provide continuous care for her and her siblings. As a young woman, she enjoyed a privileged life style and attended foreign schools for formal education. But all those luxuries disappeared when communist leader, Mao Zedong, gained control of China in 1949. To escape the instability of their homeland, my grandparents, my mother and her three younger brothers migrated to Macau and attempted to build a new life.

Unfortunately, they were ill-prepared to adapt to the contemporized society of the Portuguese territory. My grandfather could not establish himself as a credible apothecary for oriental herbal-based remedy was archaic compared to the western science-based medicine that was popularly practiced in Macau. In addition, my grandmother was incapable of working for she had always bee...

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...anging her fate was senseless notion; conversely, I believed destiny was an unwritten journey, and that I possessed the power to create my fate.

There is an old Chinese proverb, “Daughters are their mothers’ unresolved heartaches.” A daughter represents redemption for her mother. With her daughter, a mother would share her highest aspirations, deepest regrets, and darkest secrets. Her daughter would right her mother’s wrongs, so her daughter’s daughter would be pure as a snowflake. By living an authentic life, I honor my mother’s hopes and dreams for herself and her children; by having the courage to alter my fate, I experience joy for me and my mother. There will only be happiness and contentment for my children, their daughters, and their daughters’ daughters for I believe I had made amends for both my mother and me in this life time.