Yesterday, we were at lunch and Mom told us a story about her little brother's death that I wasn't prepared for. She said it nonchalantly as part of our conversation. Throughout my life, I've gotten small details of what happened to her family during the Khmer Rouge, but I hadn't heard any graphic details since I was six.
When I read my essay again, I saw that it wasn't about my millennial need to give myself some validation for my personal and academic meandering, but rather about Mom. It's about her sacrifices and everything she went through that ended with raising my sister and me.
I'm not ready to talk about that lunch conversation, but I wanted to share this essay, which I found among hundreds of forgotten documents on my Google Drive account. Consider it an introduction to a deeply personal subject that will take me a lifetime to understand.
I woke up because my throat hurt and I was sweating. Mom always worried Amanda and I would get cold at night so she'd sneak a few extra blankets on our beds. In her mind, death by dehydration took a backseat to hypothermia. In the morning, she would wake us up for school and assume I had a fever because I was always soaked in sweat. My thirst may have saved me from the ten extra minutes it took for her to take my temperature and decide not to make me stay home.
The blurry light creeping through the mini blinds was bright enough that I didn't need to grope around for my glasses. By now, I could expertly navigate the trails that Mom plowed through our mountains of Barbies. I pushed the covers to the end of the bed, and tiptoed to the bathroom so I didn't wake Amanda. Then, out of nowhere, I stepped on a rogue Barbie shoe. I jumped up and down, muffling my cries of pain, knowing that Amanda would throw something at me in a drowsy stupor if I woke her up. After gathering my composure, I limped the rest of the way to the bathroom and closed the door behind me.
I turned on the light. Big mistake. I immediately turned it off. Once that big white flash went away, I grabbed a Dixie cup from the dispenser next to the sink and turned on the faucet. I held my hand underneath the running water until it was ice cold, dipped the cup under the water, lifted it to my lips, and gulped it down in one breath. I repeated this action until I replaced all of the fluids that were now soaked into my flannel bed sheets.
After a dramatic, satisfying sigh of relief, I opened the medicine cabinet and reached for a pair of tiny scissors. I cut into the side of the Dixie cup. I was carefully edging around the bottom of the cup when the hallway light turned on and Mom opened the door.
"TAVE! AGAIN?! You're not thirsty, you're just wasting our cups!" Her eyes were tired, and I knew that she had just finished a long night of sewing doctors’ scrubs in our basement. I knew that it had to be at least midnight.
"No, Mom, I'm really thirsty!" I was still working on pronouncing my R's.
Even though the wear of working for sixteen hours was visible on her face and body, Mom noticed I had been sweating and put her hand on my forehead. Her frustrated scowl quickly turned into one of panic. She took me back to bed and pulled the covers back over me. Very quietly, she trekked through our room, stepping on the same Barbie shoe I had earlier. Unlike me, however, she gave a small wince and carried on to her bedroom, carefully closing the door.
I threw off the covers and opened the top drawer of my nightstand. I had been clutching the bottom circle of the Dixie cup and excitedly threw it into the drawer. There was the distinct sound of plastic shuffling around. I slowly and silently closed the drawer, turned over, and fell asleep.
The next morning I woke up to a dull blow to my thigh. I could barely open my eyes, but saw Amanda’s blurry figure sitting upright in her bed. As I made a move to find my glasses, the bean bag she threw at me fell off the bed.
“Manda! Why?” I sat up then fell forward on my bed, causing my glasses to fall off the bed and get lost among the Barbie dolls. A moment passed and I almost fell back asleep until THUD. “WHAT WAS THAT?!”
She had thrown her favorite doll at me. It was ragged pieces of cloth with stuffing poking out of the stitches that has been constantly replaced by Mom. It’s name was Amanda. Our father had given it to her when she was too young to know there were more names in the world besides Amanda. After it hit me in the head, there was a weak tinkering sound from the wind-up music box inside – the only part of that doll that still functioned as it did on day one.
“GET UP!” Even as a ten-year-old, Amanda was uptight about being early for school. I didn’t care as much, so I sat there for a few more seconds, then pushed my feet to the ground and dragged them to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and gulped down a few Dixie cups of water, then proceeded to cut up both my and Amanda’s cups and taking the bottoms to my top nightstand drawer. Amanda raised her eyebrow, but didn’t stop to ask me what I was doing. Her curiosity about my new hobby faded over the weeks and became nothing more than a way to waste precious moments that could be spent getting ready for school.
Each morning, Amanda would be downstairs, already on the couch watching Power Rangers, when I finally clamored down the stairs fully dressed. Our backpacks were in the exact same corner of the entryway from the day before. Mine was pink, hers was purple. Together, we’d take them to the kitchen where mom had our lunches packed in brown bags with our names scrolled in her curly handwriting, with a small heart underneath them. She used to draw a pair of lips as a “kiss,” but stopped after we told her it was embarrassing. Amanda’s lunch always had a peanut butter sandwich, an orange, and a Snicker’s bar. Mine had a jelly sandwich, an apple, and a Milky Way bar. Once, Mom switched our names and we ended up going hungry that day. Now, we’re ready for school.
Colorow Elementary had recently implemented a “reading block.” Someone in a suit decided that pretending to stare at a page of a book was more productive than the teacher teaching, so we always had to have reading material in our desk. I bent the rules and brought National Geographic. Mom had a subscription and would keep all of the volumes in a magazine rack by “my” loveseat. No one else sat in that loveseat, so I had constant access to these magazines and would flip through the pages thousands of times until I memorized all of the pictures. I couldn’t read most of them, but I refused to get a subscription to National Geographic Kids.
Before we left for school, I grabbed an issue that had a long article about Pompeii. It was old and after months of sounding out words and memorizing pictures, I had finally finished the article, with a lot of help from Mom. Even though she was fluent in English, she still wasn’t a native speaker and there were some words that would stump both of us. Sometimes, she would have to pause for a few minutes because the images of the skeletons – the people -- who died embracing each other made her cry.
So I sat there in class, with my National Geographic open. My teacher, Ms. Whitworth, had stopped questioning whether I was actually reading the material or just looking at pictures. She learned her lesson one day when she took it away from me, asked me what Pompeii was, and listened to my three-minute summary of the article. Now she was focused on getting me to read something new, but something about this dead city was very much alive to me.
Weeks before this article came out, there was a Discovery Channel documentary about Pompeii. At first, I walked into our small living room and wondered what happened to Nickelodeon. I sat on my loveseat, scowling, until the talking head disappeared and the camera slowly crawled in and out of these buildings that were once homes, but now graves. Like, a frozen moment in time, these people were entombed with their rings still on their fingers, with their bread still in the oven, and with their children crouching near them, probably frightened. Briefly pulling my attention from the TV, I looked at Mom who had a tissue in her hand, wiping her eyes. Then she went to the basement and I could hear the familiar buzz of the sewing machine.
Though we weren’t doing it as often, Amanda and I would get sick of TV and follow Mom to the basement. She kept a black garbage bag of scrap fabric for us to play with. We learned to use these industrial machines at an early age, but Amanda was scared of them and would leave most of the sewing to me. Even now, her ironing skills greatly surpass mine, but asks me to make things like aprons or bedspreads. This was one side of the basement. The other side was a different world that Mom had created just for us.
The blurry light creeping through the mini blinds was bright enough that I didn't need to grope around for my glasses. By now, I could expertly navigate the trails that Mom plowed through our mountains of Barbies. I pushed the covers to the end of the bed, and tiptoed to the bathroom so I didn't wake Amanda. Then, out of nowhere, I stepped on a rogue Barbie shoe. I jumped up and down, muffling my cries of pain, knowing that Amanda would throw something at me in a drowsy stupor if I woke her up. After gathering my composure, I limped the rest of the way to the bathroom and closed the door behind me.
I turned on the light. Big mistake. I immediately turned it off. Once that big white flash went away, I grabbed a Dixie cup from the dispenser next to the sink and turned on the faucet. I held my hand underneath the running water until it was ice cold, dipped the cup under the water, lifted it to my lips, and gulped it down in one breath. I repeated this action until I replaced all of the fluids that were now soaked into my flannel bed sheets.
After a dramatic, satisfying sigh of relief, I opened the medicine cabinet and reached for a pair of tiny scissors. I cut into the side of the Dixie cup. I was carefully edging around the bottom of the cup when the hallway light turned on and Mom opened the door.
"TAVE! AGAIN?! You're not thirsty, you're just wasting our cups!" Her eyes were tired, and I knew that she had just finished a long night of sewing doctors’ scrubs in our basement. I knew that it had to be at least midnight.
"No, Mom, I'm really thirsty!" I was still working on pronouncing my R's.
Even though the wear of working for sixteen hours was visible on her face and body, Mom noticed I had been sweating and put her hand on my forehead. Her frustrated scowl quickly turned into one of panic. She took me back to bed and pulled the covers back over me. Very quietly, she trekked through our room, stepping on the same Barbie shoe I had earlier. Unlike me, however, she gave a small wince and carried on to her bedroom, carefully closing the door.
I threw off the covers and opened the top drawer of my nightstand. I had been clutching the bottom circle of the Dixie cup and excitedly threw it into the drawer. There was the distinct sound of plastic shuffling around. I slowly and silently closed the drawer, turned over, and fell asleep.
The next morning I woke up to a dull blow to my thigh. I could barely open my eyes, but saw Amanda’s blurry figure sitting upright in her bed. As I made a move to find my glasses, the bean bag she threw at me fell off the bed.
“Manda! Why?” I sat up then fell forward on my bed, causing my glasses to fall off the bed and get lost among the Barbie dolls. A moment passed and I almost fell back asleep until THUD. “WHAT WAS THAT?!”
She had thrown her favorite doll at me. It was ragged pieces of cloth with stuffing poking out of the stitches that has been constantly replaced by Mom. It’s name was Amanda. Our father had given it to her when she was too young to know there were more names in the world besides Amanda. After it hit me in the head, there was a weak tinkering sound from the wind-up music box inside – the only part of that doll that still functioned as it did on day one.
“GET UP!” Even as a ten-year-old, Amanda was uptight about being early for school. I didn’t care as much, so I sat there for a few more seconds, then pushed my feet to the ground and dragged them to the bathroom. I brushed my teeth and gulped down a few Dixie cups of water, then proceeded to cut up both my and Amanda’s cups and taking the bottoms to my top nightstand drawer. Amanda raised her eyebrow, but didn’t stop to ask me what I was doing. Her curiosity about my new hobby faded over the weeks and became nothing more than a way to waste precious moments that could be spent getting ready for school.
Each morning, Amanda would be downstairs, already on the couch watching Power Rangers, when I finally clamored down the stairs fully dressed. Our backpacks were in the exact same corner of the entryway from the day before. Mine was pink, hers was purple. Together, we’d take them to the kitchen where mom had our lunches packed in brown bags with our names scrolled in her curly handwriting, with a small heart underneath them. She used to draw a pair of lips as a “kiss,” but stopped after we told her it was embarrassing. Amanda’s lunch always had a peanut butter sandwich, an orange, and a Snicker’s bar. Mine had a jelly sandwich, an apple, and a Milky Way bar. Once, Mom switched our names and we ended up going hungry that day. Now, we’re ready for school.
Colorow Elementary had recently implemented a “reading block.” Someone in a suit decided that pretending to stare at a page of a book was more productive than the teacher teaching, so we always had to have reading material in our desk. I bent the rules and brought National Geographic. Mom had a subscription and would keep all of the volumes in a magazine rack by “my” loveseat. No one else sat in that loveseat, so I had constant access to these magazines and would flip through the pages thousands of times until I memorized all of the pictures. I couldn’t read most of them, but I refused to get a subscription to National Geographic Kids.
Before we left for school, I grabbed an issue that had a long article about Pompeii. It was old and after months of sounding out words and memorizing pictures, I had finally finished the article, with a lot of help from Mom. Even though she was fluent in English, she still wasn’t a native speaker and there were some words that would stump both of us. Sometimes, she would have to pause for a few minutes because the images of the skeletons – the people -- who died embracing each other made her cry.
So I sat there in class, with my National Geographic open. My teacher, Ms. Whitworth, had stopped questioning whether I was actually reading the material or just looking at pictures. She learned her lesson one day when she took it away from me, asked me what Pompeii was, and listened to my three-minute summary of the article. Now she was focused on getting me to read something new, but something about this dead city was very much alive to me.
Weeks before this article came out, there was a Discovery Channel documentary about Pompeii. At first, I walked into our small living room and wondered what happened to Nickelodeon. I sat on my loveseat, scowling, until the talking head disappeared and the camera slowly crawled in and out of these buildings that were once homes, but now graves. Like, a frozen moment in time, these people were entombed with their rings still on their fingers, with their bread still in the oven, and with their children crouching near them, probably frightened. Briefly pulling my attention from the TV, I looked at Mom who had a tissue in her hand, wiping her eyes. Then she went to the basement and I could hear the familiar buzz of the sewing machine.
Though we weren’t doing it as often, Amanda and I would get sick of TV and follow Mom to the basement. She kept a black garbage bag of scrap fabric for us to play with. We learned to use these industrial machines at an early age, but Amanda was scared of them and would leave most of the sewing to me. Even now, her ironing skills greatly surpass mine, but asks me to make things like aprons or bedspreads. This was one side of the basement. The other side was a different world that Mom had created just for us.
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