My mom and I were not at all close when I was a kid. A lot of it had to do with cultural differences, I think. She is Thai, I’m a girl, she definitely favored my brother. There’s all kinds of background history that I’m definitely not going to get into, but suffice it to say that when I moved out at 16, I swore I would never go back. We stayed civil throughout the space between now and then, save one major falling out shortly after my divorce, after which I swore up and down that she had gone too far this time, and wanted nothing to do with her. Needless to say, we’ve worked that out by now, and amazingly enough, last year I actually moved home.
I was dreading it at first; my memories of living under the same roof as my mother are anything but pleasant. Her opinion of me was anything but lofty. But situation being what it was, I finagled my way into getting her to let me stay with her (for a few weeks.) And now I’ve been here 7 months, and I can’t imagine it any other way.
I’m leaving for a two week business trip tonight. The night that I come back is the same day she flies out for Thailand for 5 weeks. So I won’t see her for almost two months. I called her yesterday to see if she would be home last night (odd sentence there) and she said she would. I left work early to finish some pre-trip errands and swung by the house. She wasn’t home, but that was no big surprise. What was a surprise, though, was walking in and seeing the makings of a nice big Thai dinner. She came home just as I was about to leave, and asked me to pick her up an iced coffee while I was out, and to feel free to use her car, since it has A/C and mine doesn’t. As I was headed out the door, she yelled to me that she had gotten addicted to “Dynomite” a Pop-cap game that I had downloaded and she had stumbled across.
Came home to find her playing Dynomite, (horribly) and having the time of her life, squealing every time she did something that produced a sound effect. It was too cute. I gave her her iced coffee, gave her a quick tutorial in how to play the game, and asked her for the number to the hair salon. I headed back out to get my hair done, and she reminded me that dinner would be waiting, so I shouldn’t be too long.
She invited a few of her friends over (very cool people) and we had an impromptu going away party. It was amazing. She left last night, saying that she’d be back in the morning to take me to the train station.
She showed up this morning and played a few more games of Dynomite, before I finally dragged her away from the computer. She dropped me off at the train station, and wished me a good trip. I wished her the same, got out of the car and started to walk away. She honked, so I turned, and she was waving, and blowing me a kiss. I’m 28 years old, and my mother has never blown me a kiss before. I can count on bodily appendages the number of times we’ve hugged in my life. She told me she would miss me, that I should buy her something cool (a sa-vane’yer (souveneir) and she’d see me when she came back from her trip. I told her I loved her, and she said she loved me too. And then she left, and I walked into the train station, smiling at the way she squeals at Dynomite 