cancer.
The night after I heard from the German surgeon, I was lying in bed between Mia and Isabelle. Belle had fallen asleep, but Mia was still awake and demanding that I tell her a story. I like to tell her stories about my life and my family growing up. She loves to hear about my and my family’s escape from Vietnam, but that night, in my heightened emotional state, I wanted to tell her another story about me, something she’d never heard before. I had been talking to her about the virtues of discipline and hard work as they pertained to her violin practice. Even though she’s been studying violin for only three months, her teacher has repeatedly told me and Josh that Mia is exceptionally talented. She seems to have inherited Josh’s incredible musical ability.
Not long after her lessons began, I was sitting in on one of them and was so impressed by the sounds coming out of her instrument. I said to the teacher, “You know, I’m really glad I decided to rent such a high-quality violin for Mia. It sounds really good.” Her teacher responded, “Actually, I’ve had plenty of students who have played on expensive violins and they did not sound good. Mia is really talented.” I was shocked. It had never occurred to me that my daughter could actually be gifted at the violin. Of course, I would think that the nice sounds coming out of the instrument were because of the instrument, not because of my daughter! It was such a Chinese mom moment, so deprecating, so doubtful. My mother said things like that about me and my siblings all the time. If you’re Chinese, you will understand.
Ever since then, I’ve made a conscious effort to really believe in and nurture Mia’s musical ability to make up for my Chinese mom moment (and to resist the voice of skepticism when it tells me that the teacher is exaggerating). So I’ve been pushing her to practice daily, which is like pulling teeth without novocaine at times. Recently, rather than rewarding her with stickers and toys for practicing, I’ve been trying to explain to her that the goal (among others) is to instill in her a sense of discipline, although I’m not sure how much a five-year-old understands or cares about the virtue of discipline and its implications for life. So that night, I thought I would make the point through one of my stories.
I gathered Mia close, and we lay on our sides like a couple of nesting spoons, her long, spindly arms and legs tucked in as tight as possible and the bright hallway light casting a reassuring glow on the wall at which we were staring. And I began:
Mommy is going to tell you a story about Mommy that you haven’t really heard before. You know Mommy was born in Vietnam, but did you know I was blind when I was born? It was after the war, and there was no food or money, no money for Neh and Gong [what Mia calls my parents] to pay a doctor to make Mommy better. And even if they did have the money, there were no doctors in Vietnam that would have known how to fix Mommy’s eyes. But somehow we found a way out, and eventually we made it to this country, the United States. And even though we didn’t have any money, because nice people gave us money, Mommy was able to go to one of the best eye doctors in the world, and he fixed Mommy’s eyes. But even he couldn’t make them perfect. I still can’t see very well. That’s why I always ask you to help me see. You are my eyes sometimes.
I was really sad a lot when I was little because I couldn’t see like Uncle or Titi or Mommy’s cousins. I wanted to be able to ride a bike and play tennis and drive a car. I wanted not to have to use big books with superbig words. And no one understood how Mommy felt. I was alone and sometimes lonely in my world of half-blindness. Because Mommy couldn’t see very well, everyone in Mommy’s family thought I was not very smart. They didn’t think Mommy could do anything. Mommy got really mad. I didn’t like people telling me what I could or couldn’t do, and I was determined to show them that I could do anything I wanted. Remember that, Mia: only you can determine