Shatttterred Thoughtts Sha e ed Though s

The Hisbasketory As a boy, I used to be rancorous among the siblings. My mother was widowed a couple of years back when my father died at the unripe age of 38. She had to earn herself and the large size familys living by selling vegetables at a street-corner market. From dawn to dusk with the exception of noon when she came home for a brief lunch and necessary arrangement for the days dinner, mother spent her time working like a bee to make ends meet. Since she could not afford a paid helper running such a small and not much profitable shop, mother called for a help or two on occasions from within the family. Fair but unfair, felt I. Fair because we all knew that mother was both housewife and the pot burner of the family and single-handed. Unfair I thought because it seemed as though I was the only qualified hand among siblings to provide her so called helps in her contest against the fateful odds of the familys subsistence. Everyone else got exemption one way or another the elder ones were full-time apprentices and interns respectively at different premises and were out most of the days; the younger ones were protected in regard to their peculiar ages. But I also had reason to misbehave. A venders life was humiliating and so was helping her by any means, I conceived then. I refused, at times in almost cry, to help her with such an errand as light as carrying a small empty basket on the way to school and drop it at the shop. It was asked once at a time I was about to leave for school. Mother already had two large baskets full of green stocks to shoulder by herself and there were no one else at home to get a hand except me. The market was on the same road and halfway to my school several hundred yards away, nonetheless an enjoyable walking distance for a kid with or without an empty melon-size basket; but I was adamant in my silly noncooperative attitude toward poor mother vendor. All right then! Leave that to me. Its not for the sake of me alone that I am doing such crazy things was her only remark. No reprimand, no fuss; no more asking and no more any ones help, she did herself everything in a shabby way at least. But I had no remorse. Not until the days come on my way. Now I am feeding mouths my own only half in number of my mothers. Thanks to her great loving care, farsightedness, and unflinching selflessness, none of her offspring has to lead his/her life as precarious as she had to, not exclusively as a bee-like vendor. All my three brothers become jewelry makers, making jewelries and some fortunes the same time; two sisters married to business men and become sedentary housewives; and I myself become a marine engineer with a (mostly) charming spouse, three (always) lovely children, and a fairly secured living. We all raise our respective families in relative comfort without needing to ask any of our children to bring along an empty basket to the market or the like. Nevertheless, it is not entirely scot-free scenario as nature is creeping up in the landscapes of our lives.

Shatttterred Thoughtts Sha e ed Though s

Admittedly I had forgotten the whole story of empty basket amidst scattered memory of mother whom we have lost for ten years now. She lived her last days happy and characteristically well-content, seeing how her offspring manage to bring up their youngsters somewhat unperturbedly. We talked of her occasionally at the gatherings whereby the empty basket used to sneak into my memories with a tainting brisk stroke of guilt. There was coincidence too. Son, drop this letter into the postbox nearby your friends house when you visit him, requested I one evening while my eldest son of 16 who was at the doorsteps leaving to see his classmate a block away. With a long but still child-like face he declined telling that he might not be able to find the box, which he was not sure which I was sure to be there around. Besides, he had to carry some books with him and did not want my envelope (approx. 23x33 cm and 2mm thick) to be messed with. My daughter felt that, as a teenage girl, she should not go alone out in the street to that distance for that purpose and my youngest son, 9, claimed privilege of the minor in the family to get involved. Well! Thanks to my determined children to not take part in daddys activities, I had had a wonderful opportunity to stroll, carrying the envelope less than a few hundredth of the weight of mothers empty basket, to the postbox the same evening a travel equaling in distance form home to school of my childhood days and thirty years more traffic. Suffix to say that my envelope didnt mean anything to my familys livelihood just like my mothers basket did something to hers. When I made known of that irony to my siblings at one point, first they all laughed; then each recounted his or her own story equally ironic with their grandma. They too have their own guilt accounts so far as the memory of mother is concerned. Two years after mothers demise, I went abroad to earn for a living (of entire family) that became precarious inside day by day. It was fine occupationally but with sacrifice to some extent, predominately housewifery. I am not chauvinist for sure but I hate (literally) those oddities that require exceptional patience, skills and of course experience only to be found in feminine gender. Had it been for me alone that I took the job I would definitely have turned my back right away, go home and, as a saying in our society goes, live on cold rice and fan myself. Reciprocally might it be hateful for a woman to do so-called job for sustenance (of a family) that requires less patience but more cockiness and foul plays characterized by male. Anyway mother had done both successfully without any sympathetic assistance even of her own family. I did accomplish by myself too (no family member, no paid service for economic reason) every non-occupational thing from house cleaning to shopping that I hate most. Then, perhaps in disarray, I started to relate my lone struggle for the family to that of my mothers. Not in the sense of equating a balance sheet in terms of love and care; responsibility and gratitude. As a matter of fact how could a mid-night summer lightening be squared with the moonbeam at any rate? It was just a succession of thoughts, bizarre thoughts perhaps, of a homesick man contending in his private hours with daily
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Shatttterred Thoughtts Sha e ed Though s

household oddities. And it went as far as sanity had the limits. The thoughts were dispersed like shattered glasses. We siblings are indebted to the mother for her martyr-like sacrificing herself for the upbringing of us. The irony is that we are paying back our gratitude for that to the offspring instead. Mother would not mind for that. On the contrary, she would be very pleased with the way we returned what we actually owed her. That is what mankind has been all about. In fact the history of a family itself is the history of mankind at a grassroot level, isnt it? I had a dream the night before my first annual home-coming. I was holding the basket the same basket I strongly opposed as a kid to help bringing for mother. She and my whole family waved at me as if I were a victorious gladiator coming out of the arena; all in euphoria and mother with a particularly sumptuous smile. Was a gladiator wielding a basket inspiring? Who cared? At least all those in my dream didnt. At least they didnt seem to. I woke up in a whimsy but somewhat enjoying. As soon as I passed the arrival hall of home airport, the first thing I looked for was none other than my family. To my great pleasure, they were standing close to the partition rails. The children waved at me the way they did in previous night dream. Mother was not there it was not a dream anymore of course. Instead, I saw my wife beaming along with the kids. I could not help looking myself at both hands in a fit of haunt; they held no basket. They were naturally occupied pushing a baggage trolley on which one mid-size suitcase, one brief case and two smaller paper bags lay. None were empty. Neither was I shabby bringing them. And I didnt need a divine power to be mindful of what were inside and for whom they were there too. There ended my basket story. It was pathetic that an empty basket had no place on the trolley. But I am sure it does have in history. I say, seriously, that the history of mankind is built with of empty baskets. Isnt it?

NG TAY
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