For Moms, the fire in our veins

When my mom recounts growing up in Saigon, Vietnam, the memories are vibrant - the heady musk of incense, a mosaic of bright fabrics. After Saigon fell in 1975, everything changed. My grandfather lost his business and spent everything he had to get his family onto a cramped boat, sailing out to the South China Sea. 

On one of their attempts to flee, their boat was hijacked by men who seized gold and jewelry that the passengers had with them. Unsatisfied with their haul, they pulled my mom onto their boat, put a gun to her head, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t give up more gold. She responded “Go ahead, kill me. I’ll return as a ghost and haunt you.” They laughed and let her live. 

Do you tip over the edge of courage and slip into madness? Once you do, can you ever come back?

My mom and I have never had one of those relationships that you see on sitcoms, where daughters call their moms for advice and tell them all about their problems. During my teenage years, our house was a battleground; she wanted us to be safe, I wanted to feel like I had agency.

At the same time, I can still recall her writing out math problems by hand, extra work for us once we came home from school. Unsatisfied by the status quo, she fought for us to be more challenged, successfully advocating for me to skip a grade and attend advanced classes. I don't know how she managed to convince the school with her broken English. Moms really are the fire in our veins. 

These days, we’ve come to a delicate truce: she acknowledges my independent nature, and I respect all the struggles she has pushed through and understand that her actions have been based on trauma and survival.  

So here’s a shout out to all the moms who do what they have to do to survive, and especially all the people who have a complicated relationship with their mom but figure out a way to love them anyway. Happy Mother's Day.