Happy Mother's Day!

I will not get a chance to talk with Mom tomorrow, since she and Dad have been out of the country on a well-deserved cruise vacation. It’s a bit of a bummer for me, because even though I talk with her a few times a week, it’s weird to not be able to talk to her on Mother’s Day.

We’ve had a lot of conflicts throughout the years, Mom and I. But these conflicts blow over quickly, and throughout everything she’s always been there for me.

Mom is certainly a unique lady. Strong and often time stubborn, she would often joke that had she stayed under Communist China, she would’ve been hauled away to labor camps indefinitely because she was so defiant and strong-willed. And she has certainly encouraged me to be strong, be my own person and not always conform to the social norm.

When I was a pre-schooler in Tokyo, I played on a daily basis with the neighborhood boys, and they played rough. I often ran home crying when they would hit me. But instead of picking up the phone to call the boys' moms, she would shrug, tell me to shake it off, and say: “just hit them back if they hit you again.” I know, most parents today would be horrified to read this, but she was a believer that kids needed to work their own issues out rather than having their parents solve all of their little problems. Often times, the boys’ moms would pay her a visit and advise her that I was acting “inappropriately” for a girl – I was too loud, too wild, used rough words and not lady-like. Mom would look at them directly in the eyes, and say, “well, she certainly learns from your boys, and in my opinion, she shouldn’t be relegated to behavior that’s different from them.”

Mom is also fun-loving. Growing up, our house was always filled with music, and it wasn’t unusual for her to all of a sudden break out into a song and dance in the middle of our kitchen. Adventuresome for her age, she was the 40-something year old mom that would go on the scariest rollercoaster rides and steepest water slide with her teenage kids.

Happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful, quirky, beautiful mom.

And happy mother’s day to all of the moms out there!