My Lost Mother

Another one. Another night that I have to carry myself out of bed at 11:00 P.M, when my mom is fast asleep to unlock the door for my father to sleep on our couch.

I’m not mad at her for trying to keep out my father. How could I be mad at my mother? My caretaker, the brave woman that left my elder sister, father, grandfather and me to work in a small sewing factory on a Samoan island by herself at the age of 33 to support our family. On the island, she and 20 other workers were confined to crowded work space and living quarters. In response to any type of rebellion or outburst from the workers, the supervisor would smack their hands until their fingers turned bright red.My mother lived through these conditions in the hope for us to live comfortably, without having to suffer in the same way that she did. She would write frequently to my father, then the letters stopped.

Back home in Vietnam, 5,780 miles from my mother, our family was destitute. All the money my father and grandfather managed to scrape up throughout the years went to sponsor my mother. We saw her employment as a new opportunity, a new foundation for our family to build upon.

Like my mother, my grandfather was a brave man; he feared worrying my mother. He kept silent about his declining health, until one day he passed away while watching the nightly news on our television set. The news displayed the worsening conditions of the Samoan island. It was as if, my mother was with him in those last moments of his life; but she could never see it that way. Instead, she believed her absence caused the death of my grandfather. She blamed herself for not being with him. That night I lost my grandfather. The following day, when my father told my mother the news, my mother began to lose herself, and I began to lose her.

My mother started to write back to us less frequently. Often times, the letters she sent us were difficult to read, since they were stained by her tears.

In 2003, the US intervened and shut down the sewing factory my mother was forced to work in, and offered my family and me the opportunity to move to America to start a better life It was me, my elder sister, father, and mother - reunited again, with a new foundation in a new country.

However, my mother was not the same. The rock of our family no longer stood strong. Although we were finally under the same roof again, my mother felt more distant from me than when she was physically thousands of miles away from me on the island.

She often locked herself in her room to cry, reminded her of the abuse she experienced in the sewing factory. She would yell and snap at my sister and me, frustrated by the guilt she felt for not being home when my grandfather needed her most. Her sudden outbursts scared me. I hated coming home. I feared my mother. But I couldn’t be mad at my mother. How could I be mad at my mother? After all she’s done for me, after all she’s endured for our family? I couldn’t. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know how to make her happy again.

My mom’s sadness and guilt consumed her. My mom’s mental illness; bipolar disorder, became my new living nightmare.

#facingmentalhealth