Heroes in Our Lives

While attending the Elton John concert on September 16th here in San Jose, and with my mom still in the hospital I couldn't help but think about those people we honor and admire as heroes in our daily lives, and how our heroes change over time. Maybe I'm becoming reflective as I'm turning 40 next year, but I can't help thinking that when I was 20 my idea of the heroes in my life are very different than the ones I hold dear today. Back when I was 20 success, fame, wealth were all characteristics of my heroes. I could easily admire Tom Cruise, Billy Joel, Donald Trump or Bill Gates.

Nowadays, it seems my heroes are the ones that face adversity and survive to share their wisdom and their strength. It's much easier now to admire people like Amy Tan, David Sedaris, Cindy Sheehan, and perhaps most of all, the many people I've been able to share my life with. People including Lars, my college classmates, Phil, Stacy, and Iris, my former coworker Indra, and others, each of whom had their own adversities, yet found their own inner strength and their own success.

Today though, I can think of no greater hero in my life than my mother. It sounds cliche, but it's not. My mom's had to endure more adversity in her life than most and yet she remains one of the strongest people I know. And now in her time of need, I can only stand by and hope to help her by being there when she needs a hand to hold on to, shoulder to lean on and someone to talk to.

Maybe you don't know my mother, so let me tell you a little about her. She was the second daughter of eight children, born in Taipei, Taiwan during Japanese occupation in the late 1930's. She was born to a wealthy family, her grandfather having established a successful clock factory on the island of Taiwan. Her grandfather was a well known philanthropist in Taiwan, best known for providing graves and burial sites for paupers who could not afford a burial. She was named Meiyin, the Chinese words for "Beautiful" and "Heroic", a "beautiful hero". As a baby she was considered one of the most beautiful babies, and even won a baby beauty contest at the age of one. Early on she had a charmed life in Taiwan. The Japanese left Taiwan after they were defeated by the U.S. and my mother got to grow up in relative affluence in Taiwanese society. For a Chinese woman she was tall, and good prospects for marriage were difficult. So she married my father late in life (for a Chinese woman) at the age of 27. A year later, my sister Sufen was born and I followed another year later. By this time the family's fortunes had dwindled and there was little money left for my mother and father. My father was accepted to graduate school in the United States, and he left his family behind in Taiwan to try and improve the family's fortunes in the United States.

A year later the U.S. government invited my mother and her children to join my father in the U.S. under a program designed to convince foreign graduate students to stay in the U.S. My mother borrowed the money for her plane ticket from my aunt and bought two childrens fares for my sister and myself on credit. It was the year 1970 and we were on a TWA flight from Taiwan to JFK airport in New York City. My father left the University of Iowa to join us in NY and accepted a job at Hofstra University with only $800 in his name. $500 was spent on the first month payment for our rental house in NY, and the rest had to last us until my dad's first paycheck a month later. My mom, up until now used to affluence, had to learn overnight to become a spendthrift. We lived on thrift store furniture and hand me down clothing. My sister Marie was born a year later, increasing the pressure on the family finances. To save money my mother made all her own clothes, choosing to spend money only on necessities. Even in the harsh New York winter she went without a winter coat.

My mother did an incredible job raising three children with limited resources. She always found the little something extra to make sure we had little surprises in our lives. I remember fondly how she would save all year from piece-meal jobs she had just to make sure we had some brand new outfit for a Christmas present. She worked hard and never complained. It wasn't in her nature. She never let on to anyone in Taiwan how hard her life in the U.S. was, and made a point of keeping a good face on for everyone else's benefit.

There's more sorrow and heartache I could write about that my mother had to endure those years, but I'll keep her privacy intact for now, and just say she sacrificed a great deal for her family. What she was rewarded with, was three children, all of whom succeeded with college and graduate degrees, good careers and children of their own. I can only hope that she finds those sacrifices she made in her life worth it for what she's received in return.

To me she's still the true hero. The one who kept her family together, the one who made sure everyone was taken care of except herself. Today, even when she's got three children to depend on, she continues to be self-sacrificing, never indulging in anything for herself. And so I continue to try and find the little rewards that I can give her as hard as it may be for her to accept them.