Our first home was a tiny duplex right on the outskirts of Six Corners, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Springfield, Massachusetts. Squeezed into the tiny apartment was me, my four older sisters, and my parents who were still very young — if not in age then in knowing how to navigate a then-unfamiliar country that they called America.
My mother married my father at a young age and then had my siblings and I shortly thereafter. Her life as young refugee mother was difficult in a low-income community with limited opportunities. She wasn’t able to finish high school and faced an English language barrier as a Hmong refugee.
Her best option early in our lives was to work a rotating schedule with my father so she could both make money and take care of us at home. As my siblings and I grew older, the duplex grew too small to hold a family of seven and my parents knew that it was time to find a larger place to live in. After their tireless effort of working a job and taking care of us, we eventually moved into our current home located in a safer part of Springfield.
Over the years, the duplex was eventually demolished and replaced by a community center, but to this day it still serves as a reminder of my mother’s tireless work that she put into forging a better life for us.
Despite her struggle with the English language and the never-ending work of being a young mother of five, she eventually attained her associates degree and began working as a Nurse’s Assistant. However, her income combined with my father’s income was still a struggle for the family in our early years.
So, my mother, on top of raising five children and being a Nurse’s Assistant, began working from home as a textile worker late into the night until it was time for her to sleep for work the next day.
Every night I would watch my mother pull at the long pieces of fabric yard by yard, meticulously scanning the surface for tiny knots to be pulled out with a needle in hand. After she reached the end of a load, I would help her fold the fabric for what seemed like a hundred folds and then help her carry it onto the carts in the garage. We would then carry in a new load for her to restart the whole process for the rest of the night.
On the weekends, an 18-wheeler would squeeze its way through the neighborhood and pick up the carts of fabric, leaving her with a whole new batch of fabric to go through for the following week.
During the school week, my mother would wake up me and my sisters as we dragged our feet out of bed to get ready for school. She constantly rushed us along so we wouldn’t miss the bus, all the while getting ready for work herself and making sure that we had something to eat before stepping out of the door.
After she was done with work, she would then rush across the city to pick us up from sports practice or our after-school activity. Sometimes we got frustrated whenever she was late, not realizing just how much of an effort it was to pick us up right after a long day of work.
And then when we got home from school, my mother would always make dinner for us to eat, afterwards trying her best to help us with our homework all while juggling her textile work.
This was my mother’s life.
Through all of this backbreaking work from daytime until night time, the one thing that continued to radiate from her was an immense sense of love for my siblings and everyone around her.
There was never a moment where she wanted to call it quits. There was never a moment where anything was just too difficult for her to handle. She didn’t blame other people when things went wrong. She took full responsibility for the new sets of struggles that kept coming and found a way through.
It is this sense of love, patience, and kindness that guides my mother’s life. She accepted every moment, struggle, and person as they are. I knew that her life was a constant struggle filled with work and stress, but I never saw it on her because she handled everything so effortlessly.
I remember coming home from middle school one day when my mother asked me and my siblings to go downstairs for a little while. Confused at the random request, we obliged and waited in the room where my mother did her textile work. After a little while, my mother opened the basement door and told us that we could come upstairs now.
My sisters and I made our way upstairs and into the kitchen area. Once we were all upstairs, we saw that the kitchen table was decorated with candles, cookies, and food for us to eat as a Valentines surprise that my mother threw for us.
That immense sense of love that my mother showed to us that night only continues to grow for her family and the communities around her. Every weekend she is out with my father at community events, driving hours away to support the Hmong organizations across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. The smile and joy that she possesses on her face at these gatherings is genuine. It is a smile that I see at community celebrations and also a smile that I see at home when she is just with the family.
I still have so much to learn and cultivate from my mother’s life. From her resilience as a young refugee mother of five living in a tiny duplex, to the compassion that she gives to the larger community around her.
My mother is a shining example of living a life beyond herself and one that is led by her heart.
She is all at once a lover and a fighter, qualities that my siblings and I have inherited in our own journeys through life. Beyond any of our accolades or accomplishments, the biggest gift that my mother has provided for my siblings and I is the inheritance of her spirit and heart. She has taught us that the biggest priority in life is to become a good person first, and then any external pursuit of greatness can follow thereafter.
Yesterday, my mother turned 50 years old and we filled up an entire room at a restaurant to repay her for all the love she’s given us over her lifetime. During her thank-you speech to everyone, she mentioned the importance of cultivating an unconditional love towards the world. To simply speak about the idea of unconditional love is easy to do, but to actually accomplish it through the way you live your life is extremely difficult. But for my mother, who has forged a beautiful life from our days at the duplex to each new morning that arrives, she accomplishes this virtue so effortlessly.
These words will always fail to capture the immensity of the person that you are, but you have always been a beacon of unconditional love to everyone around you. Thank you for all the work you’ve put into providing this beautiful life for us, happy birthday mom!
