For three months after the funeral, the door to Mom’s room in our house remained closed. The silence held a heavy mixture of grief and self-reproach.
My father died early, and life had always been just the two of us—a widow and her daughter. I knew her sacrifices very well , yet our shared hot tempers often led to trivial arguments. In the rebellion of youth, her love felt like a constraint. Later, in the distance of adulthood, it became a silent, steady anchor.
After I got married and moved to the US, she split her time between her retirement home and our house. She was a force of nature and attacked housework and gardening with tireless energy. This vitality created an illusion of permanence in my mind . When the stroke took her, the suddenness haunted me. For weeks, the sound of footsteps at night turned out to be nothing but my futile hope.
Three months in, my first attempt to sort through her belongings ended in a drawer filled with half-used lipstick and familiar nail clippers. The questions remained: Was she lonely? Did she resent our petty arguments? Did she know that my drive to become a successful, self-reliant woman was the expression of my love for her?
By the eighth month, the healing power of time allowed for my second attempt. Inside a stack of winter clothes sat a yellow cotton-padded coat, which I’d purchased for her years ago in Hong Kong, but she’d never worn it. Tucked within its folds was a surprise: a jade brooch.
The jade was a long-ago gift from me—inexpensive and once the subject of an argument over “wasted money.” Yet, it had been transformed. She’d commissioned an exquisite, heavy gold inlay to encase the modest stone. Under the light, it shone with a brilliance far beyond its original value.
This brooch was the answer to every lingering question. She had meticulously preserved every gesture of affection. She knew I loved her, and through the gold-bound jade, she left an ultimate message: there was no need for regret.
Note: I also wrote the above experience into my fiction-like memoir, The Way We Forgive (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ5LNLNB)
