All We Need is Not Love…It’s Forgiveness
A daughter resenting her mother? Not exactly new. To me, my mother was a prisoner of traditional Chinese culture, valuing her sons over her daughters. A Chinese boy is the family pride; a Chinese girl is the family support. I was five when my family was smuggled into New York City from China via Hong Kong, and by nine I was working in my mother’s factory. I could hem 6,000 pieces a day — my older brother worked when he wanted. My destiny was to be a good wife to a Fujian man; the fact that I went away to college, that I earned a law degree, that my American boyfriend spoke fluent Chinese, never mattered. I was a Chinese daughter, one who never mattered at all. I was never enough for her, and I spent my life trying to make her proud.
But life’s greatest lesson is the clarity that comes with forgiveness. It is that powerful force that takes stock of what we have and illuminates what we have been given. My mother taught me this, and learning it was freeing, liberating. I finally saw her with truly open eyes. After a lifetime of rebelling against my mother’s culture, I now understood why she embraced it, finding stability in the familiar. Over time, she rose above its limitations and gleaned the best it had to offer.
