We celebrated Easter this past Sunday and enjoyed an unseasonably warm day. It was 85 degrees in the middle of April, with plenty of sunshine and zero humidity. It was simply glorious.
During church, my husband shared with the group that in Chinese culture, the time around Easter is also a time of remembrance – specifically of the deceased as we visit their resting place.
Every year around this time, my husband along with his father and sister would visit his mother’s grave in Cypress Hills. She passed away in 1993, four years before I met my husband. The emotional pain must have lingered on as he did not tell me about his mother until two months into our relationship. During those couple of months, I rehearsed my greetings and thought about what I’d say to her. I wanted to make a good impression and I wanted her to like me. Imagine my shock when I heard the words, “My mother died already.” I fell into a complete silence that evening – there was a strange void.
There was no such woman for me to meet. I would not have a mother-in-law.
Death was an issue my husband had to wrestle with in his early 20s. There are four ways to see death according to Dr. Robert Lewis, the founder of Men’s Fraternity:
- That’s all folks – the “Dead End” option
- It’s not the end, but everything will be okay – the “Blind Optimist” option
- It’s not the end, but I will be okay – the “I Am Good Enough” option
- It’s not the end, but I am uncertain and uneasy – the “I Need Some Help” option
My husband had contemplated the first three options as a young adult. “After meeting Wendy, I realized I needed some help,” he shared. At age 24, he received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
There is a Chinese axiom that says, “It’s easier to move mountains than to change a man’s nature.” (江山易改，本性難移) Many women marry with the expectation that their husband could change by the “power of love,” only to be told by jaded, older wives that it was naïve to entertain such an idea. “This is it. What you see is what you get.”
On my wedding day, I said “I do” after accepting such a reality. Yet, I was proven wrong.
I have witnessed a transformation in my husband in the twenty years I have known him. He told me a few weeks ago that in the end, he wants to be remembered as a loving husband and a loving father. It might sound trite and uninspiring, but he is living it day in and day out before his wife and children.
This tombstone is all I have to remember my husband’s mother. I penned the following note for her today:
Mrs. Cen, you never knew me as your daughter-in-law. I wish you had – because I am quite fun to be around and genuinely nice, but I just can’t cook. I want to tell you that you raised your two children well. Your daughter Ga and your son Hao are responsible, dutiful adults and parents. Your son told me that you related to others easily and that you were very sociable! Now I know where your younger granddaughter got her very jovial personality!
When you got sick, your son saw the frailty of life and that thought alone matured him. I wish I had known you personally. I want to find out more about you, so I can pass on the memory of you to your grandchildren. You know, I wouldn’t want you to be forgotten. For the first and last time, I shall call you…Mama.