to My Mother

As a child, my mother would often take me to school by 7 a.m. in Phnom Penh. She was a woman whose heart was made of steel —nothing was able to break her. She often told me, “Marry when you’re out of college, when you’re stable and have your own life, choose a man you love.” I find it ironic, coming from a woman who once never had a choice of her own.

I often watched her dress me and my sister in beautiful dresses, with elegant hair accessories. My mother, she never once dressed herself up like the other mothers at school. I resented her for it; I wished she were more feminine. I often watched her raise me and my sister alone, despite my father being present. She had nothing, yet everything.

In the end, she gave me everything—that was my mother.