Time Capsule (1) — Chopsticks
About the Assignment
This assignment aims to cultivate our storytelling skills through different mediums. For the following weeks, we are going to do a time capsule for our personal belongings. For this week, we were asked to tell the stories behind them.
The object I Put into the Time Capsule
Stories Behind
My favorite chopsticks just cracked these days.
It reminds me that I used to have two pairs of chopsticks, one from my dad, the other one from my mom.
Before my leaving for college when I was 18, I was packing my baggage in my room and found out I lacked a pair of chopsticks. To get one, I walked downstairs and asked my parents if there were any extra chopsticks I could bring to school with me.
Hearing my word, my dad quickly took a hard plastic, cylindrical case from a drawer. There were 4-pieces parts of chopsticks that could be assembled when needed. Besides chopsticks, there also were a small fork and a tiny spoon in it. Pretty functional and easy to carry.
“Take this one!” screamed my mom from the kitchen.
At the same time, she was rummaging through all the drawers then rushed into us and shouldered Dad aside. She handed me a white bag with embroidered blue flowers on it. There were also 4-pieces parts that could be assembled chopsticks. The upper part was white plastic with blue flowers same with the bag. The lower part was the steel cylinder.
I laughed and ended up keeping both of these chopsticks. I used them almost every meal. They were kind of a reminder from my parents: eat well and take care of myself. Also, they always made me feel like having meals with my family.
All my families have lived in different places for work and education since I was little. I have 2 siblings with age differences of 12 and 7 years, who were mostly having different life stages and were far from home for school. And my dad was working in China and came back once 3 months. My family barely had time to sit around the table having a meal together, except on the Chinese New Year and the Moon Festival.
A year after I went to college. One day, I was home alone. At the midnight, two polices came to knock on the door and told me my mom was at the hospital. A logistic truck hit my mom’s car at midnight. She was passed out on the spot and broke all her ribs.
All my families hurried back that night. We sat on the bench outside the operating room and waited for the result. All of that seemed so unreal. After a whole night of waiting, my mom was sent into ICU. The doctor told us it was crucial that if my mom could wake up in the following days.
The next morning, we went home to take a rest and simply take a shower. We accidentally had a reunion meal not at festivals but for this kind of emergency. Everyone’s face seemed exhausted. Although the atmosphere was not that heavy as I thought, I looked around the table and could not help but think what if this would be the scene of dining in the future, WITHOUT MOM.
“Everything will be alright.” the sound pulled me back from the thought, it was my dad. “We have to take care of ourselves to welcome mom’s home”
At that meal, instead of roughly grabbing something to eat with knitting brows and tears, we prepared a hearty meal together and enjoyed it without a gloomy face. I was so grateful that I have such a strong family that we could support each other during the tough time.
My mom finally woke up after weeks, though she couldn’t recover as she has never been through the accident. It was a long journey from waking up to being “recovered”. However, I was so glad we could reunite again and have normal meals together as usual.
I remembered I read in a book that said that in ancient China, people in the palace would have a relationship named “對食”, which means dining by sitting face to face. Dining together seemed an unremarkable trifle in our daily life but it is a blessing. While dining, people shared daily lives and were accompanied by each other, and became a family supporting each other.
Years passed, I left my hometown for the USA for my graduate studies. I received the chopsticks in the picture from my loving ones before leaving. Time is so limited that I don’t have enough time to stay with people I love. Every day when I use the chopsticks, it always passes the message from them:
“I am always with you and take care of yourself.”
