Jade Harmony lost face on her wedding day
She didn’t know the Eiyan making ritual
She had spoilt her girlhood dreaming of becoming a pianist
Mother-hood, daughter-in-law-hood, she knew were to be feared
Until she met a man with monkey ears
And eyes that spoke of yearning and determination
She forgot her vow to never become her mother
And traded in her dreams of Schubert serenades
Jade Harmony’s mother-in-law was angry at her bad luck
A daughter-in-law whose wedding day Eiyan were misshapen blobs
The ensuing retribution would take decades to play out
Today
Jade Harmony’s daughter commits the mortal sin
She’s no spring chicken but has no thoughts of marriage binds
She argues with her mother and has pretenses of knowing better
Educated in foreign ways, she’s lost to the suffering of her mother’s days
Jade Harmony’s daughter overcooks her
Too big
Eiyan
Making Jade Harmony
Secretly glad
In one of my earliest memories of you
We are at the sea
You have gone into the water, alone
I watch the angry descent of waves
I forget to play in the sand
By the ancient powers of mother-daughter bonds, I knew
That I risked the loss of you
That you were choosing solace from the war zone they call our family
You had believed he was different from the father you never knew
That the destiny of female servitude had been broken with your birth
But you didn’t reckon with his fate as the family’s sacrificial lamb
He had to leave you in order to save his mother, two brothers, three sisters,
their spouses and progeny
I watch your interaction with the waves
Like the mirrors of time
like cobwebs to the fly trapped
Like mother like daughter
Lives not of our choosing
I scream out your name
A primordial calling of my need for you
A deep and ancient power
The bloodline pulls stronger than the other
You turn around
And return to me
I am not normal, you say
Why can’t I marry
Give you grandchildren
Settle down
As a child
I had eyes that saw your tears salting the sweet New Year’s cake
Feeding those who complained of corn soup twice in a week
While your piano keys stayed cold
Things are different now, you say
Women are strong
In-laws aren’t around
When memories of kitchen fights linger still
Of when I stood petrified at the top of the stairs
unable to go down to rescue you
How can I say to you
This
And so much more
Every morning I woke to the sound of your voice greeting the dawn
Sweet, melodious, and strong
It soothed away the fears of the night and yesterday’s sadness
You sang of birds and butterflies
Of mountaintops where God lived
Of little girls with no cares
You sang the hope back into me
What immense courage and strength you had
Moving past your sorrows and pain
Forced separation from your mother
The strangers who pronounced you inferior
Losing Dad when his plane fell out of the sky
Today, people would call you resilient
I call you
My Mother
MARGARETTA WAN-LING LIN is the daughter of Yie Chen and Shu Ren Lin who inspired her to stand up against injustice. She is the mother of Ananya Li and Nikhil Kuai Bhatia-Lin who taught her the importance of joy and silliness. Margaretta was born in Taiwan and met her father for the first time in the US shortly after the Chinese Exclusion Act was lifted in practice in the 1960s. Her experience of growing up and enduring acts of both racism and the love of neighbors have defined her life journey of racial reconciliation and social justice. She is currently the founding director of Just Cities/the Dellums Institute for Social Justice.