Bonny – Zheng Juanjuan - #0505020282

I am never an early riser, especially during winter holidays not even with my mother’s repeated calls. But one particular morning was an exception.

“Wow, how beautiful! Where is the camera, Juan?” I was roused from sound sleep by this thrill from my mother. I pulled on my overcoat, slipped into a pair of slippers, and rushed out.

Everything had turned to crystal after a nightlong of hailstorm, encrusted with ice. Prismatic ice bars clung uniformly to tiles on the edges of roofs as if they were icicles from heaven. Threaded pine leaves looked like the end of a magic wand, gleaming in the morning sunlight. Our chickens were not poking as usual in the yard, but waiting anxiously for their master to give them food. They were starving and needed grain to quell the pang of hunger.

Suddenly a chill brought me back form fascination. I turned to my mother and something more unusual caught my sight. Mother was gazing at the pine tree, which had grown over the balcony. Thrilled at the scenery, her eyes beamed and her face radiated with amazement. This feast to the eyes had no doubt triggered some yet unidentified feeling in her heart. It might be love for nature, or happiness with the improved living conditions or something else beyond my perception. I suppose mother would have written a poem of the sight, had she been a poet or had she received more education. Nevertheless, she is far from both.

She had merely two years of schooling. Perhaps there had never been the concept of poetry in her mind. However, I noticed the sentiment and the longing to take down what was gong on in her heart.

I returned to the bedroom and grabbed the camera to offer it to mother. Duly I instructed her to use it. We were in the middle of fun when mother all of a sudden realized that she had to prepare breakfast for the family. I was happy seeing her enjoy herself and did not want her fun to be spoiled. So I asked to take her place in the kitchen. But she would not consent.

It struck me that she had so habitually sacrificed all she could to make her family comfortable and happy that she felt guilty if her duties were not fulfilled properly by herself. Cooking, laundry, comparatively light farm work had all been done under her care for all the twenty some years, yet never had she expected that someday she should be relieved of her routines. Neither had she thought of receiving the slightest return from her children.

This phenomenon is omnipresent among the Chinese parents and most of the time their children take it for granted. However, the idea of doing something in return might not occur often to both the parents and their children. Is it time we children took the initiative to show how much we owe to our dearest parents?