In my first years of college, I was still an angry adolescent. I hated my father for his controlling ways and I wanted to break free from his grasp. One day, I had a serious fight with him, and I stormed out of the house, missing my bus to school. As I walked towards the classroom, I suddenly realized that I had forgotten to bring the assignment that was due: a thought card.

Professor Simon had explained that every Tuesday we must bring along a thought card, on which we wrote a thought, a concern, a question or anything that was on our mind and that he would return the card every Wednesday with his comment or answer on it. He stressed that the card was our admission to class on Tuesdays. Now, I raced down the hallway, ten minutes late to class. Just outside the door, I took out a thought card and wrote on it “I am the son of an IDIOT!”, as I could only think about the conflict I’d just had with my dad. Then I dashed into the room, handed the card to Professor Simon and took my seat. The moment I reached my seat, I regretted telling him that about my dad. I didn’t want to expose myself to him.

On the Wednesday morning I got to the class early and hid in the back. Professor Simon began returning our thought cards. On my card was written, “What does ‘the son of an idiot’ do with the rest of his life?” His question got right to the heart of the issuer: Whose problem was it? Whose responsibility was it?

Professor Simon’s comment kept coming up in my mind over the next few weeks. “What does ‘the son of an idiot’ do with the rest of his life?” The question gnawed at (困扰) me, like a mouse gnawing at a rotten piece of wood until it finally falls apart. It was a simple question, but it opened up a Pandora’s box of emotions and thoughts.

I found myself thinking about what he had said more and more often.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I began to make changes in my life.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Golden Girl

When your mother enters her ninth decade, you make a point of being a little extra careful for any signs of decline—memory loss, repetition and the like.

Thankfully, my mother has been blessed with good health, and her mental state seems to have remained alright. But when she got inked at such an advanced age, I had to wonder.

My mother looks just like many grandmothers, short, slightly fat and white-haired. She’s rosy-cheeked and jolly, and when she laughs her eyes almost seem to disappear behind her fleshy cheeks. She comes from an old, traditional family. She was a career civil servant. In short, she didn’t do crazy suff.

That all changed a few years ago. She began to surprise my older brother and me with what she described as “independence.” At the time, we merely saw them as examples of irresponsibility and possibly age-related questionable judgment.

In early 2015, the year she turned 75, she informed us she’d booked a seven-night trip to Turkey. Alone. Because she had never been. Of course, that was astonishing. There was no way my brother and I could allow that. A shaky little old lady wandering the streets of Istanbul on her own, not speaking a word of Turkish, with no knowledge of the laws and customs of the land—it was out of the question!

She paid no attention to us. Off she went. When she returned, she told us it had been a wonderful success. As it turns out, she had barely spent any time alone after hiring a taxi driver to show her around Istanbul for a few days. He took her to open-air markets, parks, and restaurants. He introduced her to a rug(小地毯)seller named Mustafa, “a lovely fellow,” and she bought some rugs. The seller had taken her address details and promised to ship the rugs home. The seller and my mother apparently struck up quite a friendship and she had told him to please drop by if he were ever in Canada. My mother beamed as she told this story.

We couldn’t believe how naïve (幼稚) she had been and sat her down to explain that she had been tricked.

“Mustafa dropped by for a cup of tea as we used to drink a lot in Turkey.” my mother told my brother and me.

One of my leachers once asked my class what our favorite memory was. My leacher asked for the moment in which “you fell the best; you fell that you had the world in the palms of your hand.” Some described amazing awards; other described winning a tournament. My answer, however, invited giggles and hesitant smiles. Why? Because I felt the best when I first learned how to ride my bike at thirteen. I didn’t mind my classmates’ stares and mockery, because I knew there was more to the story.

My elder sister and I shared a typical sisterly relationship: we couldn’t stand each other. I was an annoyance to her. Any sort of conversation we had usually ended up fighting. Gradually, I started to learn to be totally indifferent; perhaps the silent treatment would get more approval. I was wrong. We soon fell into a sad pattern. I avoided her, and she ignored me.   Deep inside, it hurt. So that was how it was between us. She was only a sister in name. I truly believed that we would forever be apart, two housemates without conversation, two strangers without warmth.

I still remember the day I learned to ride a bike. I had received the bike that Christmas, which was great, until I realized that I had no idea how to ride it. My mom had long abandoned any attempt to teach me. I had proven to be a frustrating student. I took it upon myself to learn, a little bit each day. It was no different. I was coming to the end of my daily one-hour torture(折磨). I was so frustrated that I threw my bike aside and began to cry.

I guess that was what caused my sister to come outside.

“I made it,” I shouted with excitement.