What My Mom Taught Me

On "Pi" Day I will not only be eating a slice of pie, I'll be celebrating my 50th birthday. I know, you're shocked. So am I. What I'm more shocked about is realizing that my mom at my age was sending off a daughter (me) to teach in China. I simply can't imagine that for myself yet she did it.
What I loved (and still do) about my mom is the way she lived her life to the hilt. She faced every challenge with remarkable energy and openness. She was the person who always said hello to others while waiting in the check-out line at the grocery store. I used to hate it but guess what? I do that too.

What she showed me day in and day out was her willingness to accept people for who they were and was always curious about their stories. My mom had friends of all races and ethnicities ranging from an off the wall Russian artist to Italian-American co-workers at the courthouse in Boston. In the midst of treating people with a common respect and accord, she maintained her identity as a Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong whether through her cooking or her hopes and dreams for my siblings and me.

For sure my mom was not a perfect person. She definitely had her biases and prejudices but when faced with a daughter-in-law who was Puerto-Rican, a son-in-law who was Irish-American and a daughter's boyfriend who is Mexican, well, she had to adjust her expectations and found a way to embrace rather than to reject.

Before leaving for China, I wanted to have one more special weekend with my mom. We went to New Hampshire for a New Year's bash, heard great music and had a wonderful meal. My mom was truly a unique person who had the courage to let go and allow her first born daughter to seek out new vistas. In truth it wasn't really all that unusual. All my life she exemplified and modeled what it meant to be a person of empathy, compassion and adventure.

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