Hein Min’s story explores the complexities of a young man’s adoptive mother’s relationship, highlighting themes of family, forgiveness, and yearning for belonging. An exclusive for Different Truths.
I had spent 25 years living in my adoptive parents’ home in Mawlamyine before I permanently moved to my maternal grandparents’ apartment in Yangon. When my other mother comes with my nephew, unrelated by blood, on an appointment with her ophthalmologist, after a year of separation, she brings home—the dilapidated home like her rundown body—the home I would never return across miles woven with desultory yearnings. Home comes to me as if love comes to find me out of the past when I can’t see myself back on the forbidden borderline of the past. After all, true love always finds its way to what seems impossible.
How delighted I am to see my mother once again after a very long time. At the same time, I feel a little sad. I interpret her words from her widespread laughter and sustained smile greeting me after she calls out my name to help her exit the car. I evaluate her wealth not by the gold ornaments fettering her limbs, but by the size of her arms, which have become smaller and her face shrunk. But I hardly dig out for the hidden truth through some implied interrogation, for I don’t want to make something new of the present of my life and burden myself with the heaviness I disburdened myself of much earlier.
To my surprise, my mother is being kind to me, specifically in how she speaks.
To my surprise, my mother is being kind to me, specifically in how she speaks. In those days, she used to always be on bad terms with me, for the reason given on the astrological premise that she is a Monday born and I a Friday born. But now, this remarkable witness, I think, results from one year of separation, which has led her to the disillusionment of the forgotten tie she has naturally developed with her adopted son. Mother gives me some pocket money out of her wristlet. I thank her for it. I am short of money because my home class is vacant as it is now a one-month school holiday.
I am pleased to know that I am going to get to eat my mother’s food once again. Savouring the old curries she makes; I find myself at home again: a reminiscence that warms my eyes and makes my heart tingle. At the dining table, we get to listen to mother’s prattle about the ordinary daily events she has experienced and some harmless gossip. Then, she goes on to talk about what has happened in my old home during my absence in a distressing way, and this drags on as if carrying the weight of the past. I just turned a deaf ear to it, and not very long ago, I left the chat circle.
Three days have gone by, and my mother has gotten her eye injection.
Three days have gone by, and my mother has gotten her eye injection. And I learned that she is leaving tomorrow. I am happy; I can ask for more money to spend while I am out of work. When I approach her for it, she tells me off, sarcastically saying how much more she still has to pay me, and adding that she can’t do that anymore. I have seen her cram ten thousand notes into her young grandson’s hand whenever he went out or wanted to buy something. Mother doesn’t think about how hard I have been struggling to survive as a devoted poet and part-time language teacher. I felt hurt, and I stopped talking to her. After all, I am just an adopted son, not of any importance to them. In the end, I will be placed only where they think I deserve to be.
In my dream the night before she leaves, my mother keeps staring at me from a void like a night. Her face is pitiable, and she looks tired and miserable. Above all, she feels tender to me. I feel a touch of love in her eyes. In the morning, I woke up with the thought of my mother. I hear the car being started outside. I hurried downstairs and managed to catch my mother just before she got into the car. I kneel right before her as if in repentance for the burden I laid on her, asking for money again, and begin to pay homage to her with veneration. This is all I can do for her as of now. It has been a year since I’ve touched her feet with my homage-paying hands. I am going to be away from my home, and I feel something churning deep inside my body. But my home, shedding her tender smile just like the one I saw in my dream, hands fifty thousand notes to me, before she happily says goodbye, sliding into the back seat of the car. Outside, I am standing with the money in my loose grip, while my eyes remain longingly following the trail of my home, which quickly fades away from my sight, leaving me alone in the growing heat of Yangon morning, replete with the unsaid.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
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