My mom is 93 years old, and her entire world is driven by
fear.
Some background, she was on one of the last boats that came
to Taiwan in 1949 just before the relations between Taiwan and China was shut
down, so she was one of the last people to leave China. She came to Taiwan,
alone, not own anything outside of what was on her back and in a little
suitcase. She came to be with relatives and managed to get work and survive.
This was quite a change from her youth. My maternal grandfather was a local
banker and she grew up with 14 brothers and sisters in a large house, with
servants waiting on her. As with most women who lived in feudal China at that
time, she never went to school beyond the secondary school, and yet she managed
to make a living. Working as an assistant principal of a middle school in
Taiwan, and then a bookkeeper for USAID.
She married my father and had me, after three miscarriages; we
moved to Honduras for my dad’s career as an engineer and then to the US. Our
finances were not great at that time and our family struggled. Mom sacrificed,
scrimped and saved, and even managed to work as a book keeper when they lived
in Salem Massachusetts. She did all of this without complaint, toughed it out
in the US and outlived my father.
All the above is to say mom is a survivor.
Back to the present, every decision my mom makes in her
every day life is driven by fear. Fear of the unknown mostly but fear all the
same. It is the prime mover in her life.
She is afraid that anything that she does will result in
more pain and suffering, she is afraid that every decision I make is a bad
decision which would result in pain and suffering for the two of us. She is
afraid of leaving the house whenever it rains or snows because she is afraid
that we may get into a car accident while driving. She is afraid when I go on
long trips and she is afraid when I go on short trips. She was afraid when I
started coaching volleyball because she thought I was wasting my time on
frivolous non-essential activities, i.e. something isn’t central to my identity
as an engineer. She is afraid of being late to anything, so we spend a lot of
quality time in waiting rooms because we are so early. She is super generous
with gifts for people who helps her, it could be the receptionist at the
doctor’s, the bank teller, the lady who helps her at the church she attends,
because she is afraid that she would be looked upon as someone who is
ungrateful.
At first dealing with this world view was agonizing for me, the
insecurity grated on me; but as I stayed home and spent time with her, it came
to me: she did not live a normal life. She lived in extraordinary times and her
circumstances were extraordinary. Her fears came partly from the times she
lived in: the Japanese invasion of China, the division of China and Taiwan. The
periods of stability in her life came while she lived in Taiwan during
uncertain times, for her and for Taiwa. It came during the cold war between the
East and West. She’d moved to two different countries where she had to learn
different languages and navigate the very different culture and society that
surrounded us. It was completely foreign to her cultural and economic
background. And yet she persisted. The key to her survival is because of her
persistence, all driven by that fear fear. As I remember our home growing up,
she has always been the one who fretted and worried, driven by fear of the
unknown.
Her fear has multiplied as the years wore on, her ability to
understand the English language diminished, her ability to navigate her way
around our modern society is hampered by the erosion of her senses because of
old age, and her confusion with the world around her deepens because she just
can’t keep up with the changes. Add atop of all that the fact that all of her
friends, as well as my father had preceded her in passing on, she lives in a
lonely and very scary world. Things that I take to for granted is not so simple
for her. Which further amplifies the fear that she feels.
Our clashes since I have been home had, thankfully, receded,
partly because of her and partly because
of my slow realization of how difficult living in the modern world is for her.
Alas, the biggest problem is that she can’t adjust to all the changes, not that
she wouldn’t, but she just can’t. Of course, why would anyone ask a
ninety-three-year-old to make changes to accommodate our needs, it seems to be
too much to ask and too impossible to accomplish. It would be sheer folly to
even try, as the explanations and the process of seeking to understand is
counterproductive.
So I have come to learn that it is I who should adjust and
conform to her need. It hasn’t been easy, while we still clash, we don’t do it
as often nor as intensely as we did before. I still have a tendency to lose my
temper, we have the same temperament so it is inevitable that we clashed.
