AN EMOTIONAL AND TOUCHING STORY
My mom only had one eye. I hated her… she was such an embarrassment.
My mom ran a small shop at a flea market. She collected little weeds and
such to sell… anything for the money we needed & she was such an
embarrassment!
There was this one day during elementary school where my mom came to say hello to me. I was so embarrassed.
How could she do this to me? I ignored her, threw her a hateful look and
ran out. The next day at school one of my classmates said, ‘EEEE, your
mom only has one eye!’
I wished that my mom would just disappear from this world so I said
to my mom, “Mom, why don’t you have the other eye?! You’re only going to
make me a laughing stock. Why don’t you just die?” My mom did not
respond. I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good
to think that I had said what I’d wanted to say all this time.
Maybe it was because my mom hadn’t punished me, but I didn’t think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.
That night…I woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of
water. My mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that
she might wake me. I took a look at her, and then turned away. Because
of the thing I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at
me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my mother who was crying
out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would grow up and become
successful, because I hated my one-eyed mom and our desperate poverty.
Then I studied really hard. I left my mother and went abroad to study
and got accepted in a University with all the confidence I had. Then, I
got a successful job and got married. I bought a house of my own. Then I
had kids, too. Now I’m living happily as a successful man. I like it
here because it’s a place that doesn’t remind me of my mom.
This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when someone unexpected
came to see me “What?! Who’s this?!”. It was my mother. Still with her
one eye. It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little
girl ran away, scared of my mom’s eye.
And I asked her, “Who are you? I don’t know you!!!” as if I tried to
make that real. I screamed at her “How dare you come to my house and
scare my daughter! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!” And to this, my mother
quietly answered, “oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong
address,” and she disappeared. Thank goodness, she doesn’t recognize me.
I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn’t going to care, or
think about this for the rest of my life.
Then a wave of relief came upon me. One day, a letter regarding a
school reunion came to my house. I lied to my wife saying that I was
going on a business trip. After the reunion, I went down to the old
shack, that I used to call a house. Just out of curiosity there, I found
my mother fallen on the cold ground. But I did not shed a single tear.
She had a piece of paper in her hand…. it was a letter to me.
She wrote:
My son…
I think my life has been long enough now. And I can’t visit you anymore.
But would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come visit me once
in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were
coming for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school…. For you
not get embarrassed. I’m sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an
embarrassment for you.
You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and
lost your eye. As a mother, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow
up with only one eye… so I gave you mine… I was so proud of my son that
was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was
never upset at you for anything you did. The couple times that you were
angry with me. I thought to myself, ‘it’s because he loves me.’ I miss
the times when you were still young around me.
I miss you so much. I love you. You mean the world to me.
Love, Mother.
My world shattered!!!
Then I cried for the person who lived for me… My Mother.
- Author Unknown