第3章

-His mother’s fourth lie

After father’s death for illness, the mother played the role as mother as well as father. Depending on the little income in the sewing factory, the mother brought up their children with hardships. For the boy’s education fund, the family was very complicated. There was a Uncle Li who lived by making watches in alley where was underneath a telegraph pole. When he had known it, came to help her in a big problem and a small problem, carrying the coal and lifting up the water.Human’s hearts are not indifferent like plants’. The neighbors saw that and advised the mother married again, it was not necessary to bear so much. However, year after year, the mother didn’t marry again. Some people adviced again, she was stubborn, didn’t care to their advices, she said, I don’t need love.

-His mother’s fifth lie

After graduated and got a job, boy’s retired mother was sincere to work in a nearby marketplace to support herself. The children far away from her had known it, often sent her some money to help her infulfill her needs, but she was stubborn for not accepting the money, even sent the money back. She said, I have enough money.

-His mother’s sixth lie

The boy had taught for 2 years in his graduated school. afterwards, he gained the Master Degree from one of the U.S. famous university. After graduated, he finally worked in a America scientific research institution, and the salary is high. As being rich, the boy intended to take his mother to enjoy her life in America, but she refused. She said, I’m not used to.

-His mother’s seventh lie

After entering her old age, mother got a flank cancer and had to hospitalized. The boy, who lived in miles away and cross the ocean, directly went home to visit her, she had been at the edge of death. The mother looked old. When the boy looked, how the disease broke her body, heart was hurt and tears flowed. But the mother said, don’t cry, my dear, I am not in pain.

-His mother’s last lie

Pray for My Mother

为母亲祈祷

Dear God,

Now that I am no longer young, I have friends whose mothers have passed away. I have heard these sons and daughters say they never fully appreciated their mothers until it was too late to tell them.

I am blessed with the dear mother who is still alive. I appreciate her more each day. My mother does not change, but I do. As I grow older and wiser, I realize what an extraordinary person she is. How sad that I am unable to speak these words in her presence, but they flow easily from my pen.

How does a daughter begin to thank her mother for life itself? For the love, patience and just plain hard work that go into raising a child? For running after a toddler, for understanding a moody teenager, for tolerating a college student who knows everything? For waiting for the day when a daughter realizes her mother really is?

How does a grown woman thank for a mother for continuing to be a mother? For being ready with advice (when asked) or remaining silent when it is most appreciated? For not saying “I told you so”, when she could have uttered these words dozens of times? For being essentially herself-loving, thoughtful, patient, and forgiving?

I don’t know how, dear God, except to bless her as richly as she deserves and to help me live up to the example she has set. I pray that I will look as good in the eyes of my children as my mother looks in mine.

A daughter

Quotations About Mothers

解读母爱--

关于母爱的名人名谚

All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother. I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.

-Abraham Lincoln

My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.

-George Washington

There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness... The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way.

-Andrew Jackson

Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall. A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.

-Jewish proverb

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

-Author Unknown

In all my efforts to learn to read, my mother shared fully my ambition and sympathized with me and aided me in every way she could. If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

-Booker T. Washington

It seems to me that my mother was the most splendid woman I ever knew... I have met a lot of people knocking around the world since, but I have never met a more thoroughly refined woman than my mother. If I have amounted to anything, it will be due to her.

-Charles Chaplin

爱在无言瞬间

Father’s love can be compared to a mountain. Although we do not look at it everyday, when you fall down, it’s just behind you. From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other.

父爱像一座高山。虽然我们不必每天仰望，可是跌倒时，山就在背后。是父母教会了你如何去爱，如何去笑，如何走路。

Fathers Have a Unique Job

父亲的职责无可取代

By Debbie Farmer

If parents had job descriptions mine would read: organize bills, playmates, laundry, meals, laundry, carpool, laundry, snacks, outings and shopping, and laundry.

The only thing on my husband’s description would be the word “fun” written in big red letters along the top. Although he is a selfless caregiver and provider, our children think of him more as a combination of a jungle gym and bozo and clown.

Our parenting styles compliment each other. His style is a nonstop adventure where no one has to worry about washing their hands, eating vegetables, or getting cavities. My style is similar to Mussolini. I’m too busy worrying to be fun. Besides, every time I try, I am constantly outdone by my husband.

I bought my children bubble gum flavored toothpaste and I taught them how to brush their teeth in tiny circles so they wouldn’t get cavities. They thought it was neat until my husband taught them how to rinse by spitting out water between their two front teeth like a fountain.

I took the children on a walk in the woods, and after two hours, I managed to corral a slow ladybug into my son’s insect cage. I was “cool” until their father came home, spent two minutes in the backyard, and captured a beetle the size of a Chihuahua.

I try to tell myself I am a good parent even if my husband does things I can’t do. I can make sure my children are safe, warm, and dry. I’ll stand in line for five hours so the children can see Santa at the mall or be first in line to see the latest Disney movie. But I can’t wire the VCR so my children can watch their favorite video.

I can carry my children in my arms when they are tired, tuck them into bed, and kiss them goodnight. But I can’t flip them upside down so they can walk on the ceiling or prop them on my shoulders so they can see the moths flying inside of the light fixture.

I can take them to doctor appointments, scout meetings, or field trips to the aquarium, but I’ll never go into the wilderness, skewer a worm on a hook, reel in a fish, and cook it over an open flame on a piece of tin foil.

I’ll even sit in the first row of every Little League game and cheer until my throat is sore and my tonsils are raw, but I’ll never teach my son how to hit a home run or slide into first base.

As a mother I can do a lot of things for my children, but no matter how hard I try-I can never be their father.

Twilight Time

黄昏时分

Reflexively I reached to turn on my car radio, preset to KGBX, the soft-rock station I always listen to on my early-morning drives to my job at the post office. Then I glanced at my 14-year-old daughter in the passenger seat and thought better of it.

Liz wore a dress. That in itself bespoke the seriousness of the occasion. We were on our way to the Springfield, Missouri, district wide music competition, where Liz would be playing a flute solo, her very first. I knew from my own competition days back in Minnesota that it messed with your concentration to hear any music besides the piece you were planning to play.

“Dad said he might come.” Liz said. Her father hadn’t been a big part of her life since our divorce 10 years earlier, and she sounded both excited and scared.

Boy, did I know that feeling-wanting to impress your father and at the same time, being terrified of letting him down? Suddenly I was 12 years old again, sitting onstage at the Minnesota state music competition, fingers poised on the keyboard of my shiny black Pan Italia accordion. I looked out at the audience of proud parents. Then I saw him. My dad. He sat at the end of a row, arms folded, crew cut bristling. His piercing blue eyes narrowed behind his black-rimmed glasses and focused unwaveringly on me.

I completely choked. I’d practiced my contest piece for months until I knew it by heart, inside and out. But my fancy accordion might as well have been a cardboard box that afternoon. I forced out some semblance of a tune and fled the stage in tears.

No consolation came from my father, a World War II veteran who epitomized authority. He didn’t say a thing to me. He just took the wheel of our station wagon, his mouth a grim line as we set off on the 150-mile drive back to Duluth. I didn’t say anything either. What could I say, really, after what I’d done? I knew how hard Dad worked to scrape together enough money for my accordion and lessons. But the one time he was able to come to a competition, I let him down.

The farther we drove, the more the silence in our station wagon grew until it stood like an impenetrable wall between Dad and me. It seemed an especially cruel punishment considering music had been our deepest connection.

By the time I came along, the last of five children, my father was worn out from the demands of supporting a large family. My brothers and sisters and I tiptoed around him when he came home from his shift at Jeno’s Pizza factory. But on Sunday afternoons, Dad would sit back in his recliner and ask me to play for him. He loved the music of the Big Band era, and none more than the song Twilight Time. I taught myself the tune from the sheet music, just for him. It didn’t seem to matter that my rendition was lacking in style. My father would hum along, his eyes closed, tears escaping from the corners as if I’d transported him to some magical, heavenly place.