This short story is about a boy who is filling in his mother's spot. His mother has cancer and she's dieing. This young boy does what his mother would do for the family. He cooks cleans and does what a mother would do. He attends his mother and tries his best to get things done. The guilt of his mother about letting him go to boarding school is like no other. The guilt she feels is sadness but happiness at the same time.
While he was in the kitchen his mother had commented that she made a mistake by letting him go off to boarding school if she had know that she was going to die. Then she reacted and said it was better for him to not see her get worse each day. I think it would have hurt her more to let her son see her die a little more each day. Life does go on and as a mother she wanted the best and probably didn't want him to suffer. In her head she probably thought it would hurt him less and he would be able to live on. He did live on but he kept the memory of her and wonder about her and what she was doing. He'd see the image of his parents when they pulled over as she was dieing, but he didn't suffer just like his mother thought he wouldn't. He did suffer but his mother would be proud of how he got through.
I can totally understand the situation between Lee and his mother because I have the same situation here. I am here in States for studies and my mother is back home.Every time I call her she tells me how much she miss me.Grief of staying away from your loved ones is agonizing. Author’s mother laments over her sacrifice of letting her son go to boarding school and his time away form family. At her last moments of life she wished she could have spent more time with her family, especially with Lee. But at the end she knew that for the sake of the author’s career she has to hide her emotion.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteUntil I read your responce I hadn't thought about how if Lee hadn't gone to boarding school he would have been watching his mom slowly get worse. I can't imagine how painful that would have been.
Hello Xochilt!
ReplyDeleteIt was really sad to read this story but the author did great by giving all those details of his mothers regrets and the pain that she was going through. I felf that she had that regret of letting him go to boarding school because it was less time that she was spending with her son. Especially now that she had less time left on this world, she felt that time was lost and that he grew distant from her but in reality he loved her very much and showed appreciation of her by holding on to her cooking. By cooking, a piece of her will forever live on in their family after she passes on.
Hope you have a great week,
Jaime Rivera
Xochilt,
ReplyDeleteIt's impressive that he would do all the family cooking. I think it was a way for him to share something with his mother. Maybe he was trying to hold on as much as he could because he knew that eventually she would pass away. Food seemed to be an important aspect of their family life. By cooking he continued to refresh that memory of his mother's cooking. He learned from her and by taking the time to prepare their family meals, her food lived on through him. Not only her food, but her essence as well.