Someone sent me this story via a forwarded email chain a very long time ago. I suddenly thought of it so I fetched it from the Net. This is how the story goes:
My mother had only 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 cooked for students & teachers to support the family, 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 has only one eye!”
I wanted to bury myself. I also wanted my mom to just disappear. So I confronted her that day and said,
” If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock, why don’t you just die?!!!”
My mother remained silent. I didn’t even stop to think for a second about what I had said, because I was full of anger. I was oblivious to her feelings. I wanted out of her house. 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 came to Seoul and studied, and got accepted in the Seoul University with all the confidence I had. Then, I 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.
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.
One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house. After the reunion, I went to the old shack just out of curiosity. My neighbours said that my mother had died. I did not shed a single tear. They handed me a letter that she had wanted me to have.
My son…
I think my life has been long enough now.
And I won’t visit Seoul 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. 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 who 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.
With my love to you..
Your mother
I do not know how true this story is, if someone who had really gone through that wrote it. But this story teaches us so many things in so many ways. For instance, how could you ever hate or have ill feelings towards your parents? Because they want nothing but the best for you and I know that given the chance, any doting parent would’ve done the same as the mother in the story above.
It also teaches us that people with disabilities have feelings too, they too can contribute to the world. They are not a nuisance or a burden. The mother had only one eye, but she was capable of raising her son single-handedly and she brought food home for her son.
Also, many people who are born in a perfectly fine condition do not appreciate it. Some rant about how life sucks but what about those who can’t speak? How do they rant? They are forced to suppress their feelings and thoughts without having anyone at all to listen to them. Some complain about the kind of shitty music we have these days, what about those who are deaf? What would they give just to be able to listen, regardless good or bad music or even the annoying noise pollution cars/construction sites produce.
The story sounded a lot like the one Dad told me. It’s about a girl who constantly complained about how she doesn’t have enough pairs of shoes until the day she met another girl without feet.
Imagine people who were born mentally-challenged, those born without a leg or a hand, those born without the ability to see. What they would not give to have your life. Yet here we are, always complaining about this and that, every little thing we are not happy about. If you are reading this, remember that your life is so much more better than half of the world population, maybe even more than that.
I think it has a lot to do with the kind of food you feed your pet/s. And it’s a good thing his teeth grew so well too!
