The Day My Mother Wept

Even the hardest of hearts and the hardness of Man will yield to the tears of a lady or to the weeping of a girl.

In this case, the hardest of heart happened to be mine, and the tears of the lady belonged to my mother.

I only thought that my mom was the strongest lady - or person, as a matter of fact - in this world. She'd be the one that will stand up for me when people scolded me recklessly for something that I didn't do, she'd be the one that will protect me whenever I was in trouble or in danger, she'd be able to take it like a 'man' and not feel anything bad about it.

People have hurt her before, trust me. There was this one particular lady whom my mom took great care of while she was pregnant. She'd come to our house every single morning and do nothing but lie on the couch, throw out every 10 minutes or so, and my mom would feed her, clean up the mess after her, make sure she's comfortable and stuff while fetching me and the lady's son to school and tuitions and stuff.

Before long after she delivered her child, she turned around and slandered my mom. She condemned my mother for 'not being able to raise up good children' - in direct reference to me -, she claimed that my mother was trying to sabotage the children's ministry in church back then, she accused my mom for being biased towards doctor and lawyer's children.

The best part of all - often to my amuse as I reflect upon it - was when she told people that my mom was suicidal.

One fine day I met her in a coffee shop with my mom when she happened to stumble across our table. She looked awkward and was trying to smile sheepishly but almost immediately turned away and walked in a different direction. I was about to stand up, raise my hand and yell at her. (I hate people who hurt my mother. That's me. And I'd attack anyone who tries to touch her.) Then my mother pushed me back to the chair and shook her head.

"But she slandered you mummy."

"Leave it," she replied calmly. "Let God handle her."

That was my mom. She's the type of person who'd tolerate people who try to be funny with her but she'd never return an eye for an eye where slandering or vengeance is concern. She'd never lash out at other people except for her own children whenever they said something nasty about her. I've seen more than enough with my own eyes. Hypocrates in church, in-laws, some school teachers back in primary school. Quietly and patiently, she'd just swallow all of it, go home, surrender it to the Lord and move on with life.

Until the day I saw my mom cried, I would never know how much my mom meant to me.

4 years ago I fought with my brother so badly that my mom thought that 'we could have killed each other'. I was holding a PVC pipe and my brother drew a ratten staff that my dad kept in the house for protection. At the height of our fury we were about to slash each other with the bluntest objects in the history of modern warfare, and there was my mom who stood in the middle of both of us holding up both her hands, one facing each side, and yelling at the top of her voice,

'SNAP OUT OF IT YOU BOYS! JOASH! BACK TO YOUR ROOM! NOOOOOOOW!!!'

And that dissolved the war. But that marked the beginning to a new war, a cold war that would last for almost 1 whole year. In that period of time, neither of us spoke a single word to each other and we'd be on the guard if anyone of us crossed each other's path and then it'd spark a new war.

The same night, she called me into her room. Kneeling in front of her as she sat on the bed, she started half lecturing and half scolding me for nearly killing my brother, and I'd be arguing about how it wasn't my fault and how my brother started it.

Then suddenly she stopped scolding me. I was still a little lost about what happened initially because i wasn't looking at her but at the floor instead. I knew that something was wrong when she was so quiet. And I looked up.

And I saw water beads on her head. I thought it was her sweat.

But it wasn't. Those were tears. Flowing down from her eyes., those were tears.

I was dead stunned. I could swear to you that was the first time in my life I saw my mother cried, and for a while both my mom and I were silent. Except for the occasional sniffing from my mom, it was dead silence.

She wiped her tears swiftly, making sure that I don't see too much of her crying. "Joash, will you promise me that you will never do that again?"

That night I couldn't sleep at all. All these years I have been a notorious boy that only wanted my way, always fighting and arguing with my brother, never thinking about how much it would devastate my mom everytime that happens. It never struck me that the number one thing that would truly and really hurt her was what other people said about me or her, but me. The things that I do, the way I behave, the way I treat my parents.

Rude, irresponsible, boisterous, obnoxious, mean, inconsiderate.

That night, the only thing on my mind was her tears. This feeling that never stirred in my heart started to surface. It was the feeling when you feel disappointed, disgusted by the things that you've done. It was probably the feeling of being so useless and moronic. It was about realising that you've been such a thick skin jerk all this while until you cause your mother so much heart ache. It was the mere thought of being hopeless and beyond being saved. It was about disappointing your mother and letting her down when the hopes and expectations of you turning out to be a good son was all dashed by your behaviour.

That night, I made up my mind. I decided, and I determined to change. To be better. To be nicer. To be more responsible. To be a better son.

But most importantly,

to never make my mom cry. Ever again.

And I promised myself that I'm not going to ever make her cry again. But the problem was that I didn't really kept my promise.

2 years ago as I was preparing for my SPM, I was challenged to the last bit of my faith. In front of me was all but a future of medicine. I wanted a future and the hopes of a future but I saw none. The problem was that I doubted about what I had ahead of me. My father had almost no savings, or enough savings for me to pursue medicine. I wanted so badly to be a lawyer because back then I enjoyed debating and wanted to do that. But more than anything else, I wanted to pursue law because it was the cheapest next thing I thought my parents could afford after medicine.

That decision of mine sparked a series of debates and arguments between me and my mom again. I didn't know what my mom had against me doing law so much, but she sure didn't want me to be a lawyer. Until now, I'm still yet to know why. In the car on the way to tuition, she'd keep persuading me to do medicine instead and kept reminding me not to worry about the money. Problem was that I always thought that my mom had this unrealistic point of view thinking that 'God will always provide' when the reality was that there was no money, if not there was just not enough money for both me and my brother to pursue medicine.

Back then the only thing that pushed me to work was great fear and desparation. I saw with my own eyes the price that my brother had to pay for not getting straight A1s in his biology. I saw how hard it was to survive STPM and how impossible it seemed to get into local university. The odds were stacked against me to do medicine, and there was my mother trying to get me to do something that I was no longer interested to do.

One day before the trials, my mom blurted out of desparation, "Joash, why are you so stubborn?"

I was doing my homework and looked up. I could only see my mother standing across the table. Her eyes were read. "What happened to your faith? What happened to your belief in becoming a doctor?" And she walked into her room, hands in her head and walked to her room.

It wasn't my fault that I didn't believe that I should be a doctor, but it sure was my fault this time to make her cry. And this time, it wasn't my behaviour, it was my 'losing the vision' that disappointed her so much.

Later the evening, she sat down with me and told me the most important thing that kept me working towards the trials and the actual SPM.

"God told Moses to stretch forth his arms to part the sea, only when they were actually standing in front of the sea. Until their foot touched the water, the sea never parted.

"The way will open before you only when you reach that stage. Time now, go step by step and work towards completing your today, and not your tomorrow. Let tomorrow handle tomorrow, and today handle today."

Sometimes I still wonder how tough ladies like my mom could ever cry. I wonder how is it that the toughest shell could succumb to the softest of human emotion. And maybe that's why ladies are always ladies. Soft on the outside and yet tough in the inside. Like fruits, allowing the softness of emotions to embody the resilience of the hard seed inside, that's truly what that makes my mom great. One thing for sure, that was the last time my mother ever cried over me, and trust me, I do plan to keep it that way for a long long time.

I changed when I saw my dad smile, but I was changed when my mom wept. The power of the tear is not in the pain behind it, but in the changes it can yield after the tears have dried.

Postlude: Just recently my mom called and cried over the phone, and as I heard her crying I reminded myself to continue to be a good son and to always be there for her. Especially when I'm away now, I sometimes wonder, what can I do to wipe her tears if she were to cry again?

I'd never know.