TADIOTO

It’s mother. I wrote this story some fifteen years ago. I should have posted it on Mother’s day, but I was traveling.

MOTHER

Mother has developed a new habit. It’s rather annoying.
She routinely hangs up on me when we talk on the phone.
I normally don’t tolerate anyone hanging up on me. It’s not something I can forgive. I think it’s impolite, of course. But this is my mother we’re talking about.
It’s not that she’s forgetting her manners. She just can’t tell me she doesn’t like hearing what I have to say. So she just hangs up, right in the middle of our conversations.
She does it quietly and slowly, so that there is a silence to leave me wondering.
Hello? Ma, Ma, I say. Are you still there?  Are you listening to what I’m saying? Ma?
In the middle of such questions, I hear the click. Then, after a while, the telephone tone.
I can’t call back and complain. Mother would simply hang up on me again.
So I choose my words more carefully the next time I call, to try and tell her the things I need to tell her. I start with mundane things then slowly introduce the necessary topics. I only mean to say what I must say. I remind my mother that she needs to always wear her glasses. That she’s 70 years old, she can’t see the steps, and she will fall down and hurt her knees. She’d have to go into the hospital again.
Mother hangs up right there and then, or when I remind her to rub her legs with balm, so her bones won’t ache too much. Sometimes, she hangs up when I say she doesn’t exercise enough, that she needs to take a walk sometimes around her apartment complex, like the old people who are her neighbors. I remind mother about another doctor’s appointment, to have her feet examined, her heart and blood pressure checked.
Mother hangs up again then. Very quietly, as though she’s just dropped the receiver and it’s hanging in mid-air. As though she’s rather tired of everything, as though she no longer cares about much. Other times, I tell her that watching videotapes of Chinese movies all night isn’t all that good for her. And mother will sigh when I tell her she’s overweight. A moment of silence. Then she hangs up. Click.
Sometimes she tells me she’s sad. She tells me she’s sad when I tell her she can’t take sleeping pills every night. She’s sad about how I’ve turned out in America.  Fifteen, twenty years in America and I haven’t amounted to much. I’m the kind of the son that brings her no pride, like other graduates and engineers and doctors. A big house, with a German shepherd running around in the big yard. A swimming pool or a hot tub with swirling waters. A new car, with leather seats and all kinds of electronic buttons. I’m the kind of son who hasn’t tried to get himself a good job, a career. I’m a bad son. I only call my parents once in a while, a pretension at being filial.  

During one of the phone calls, mother mentioned she’s worried that I have not put aside money to buy her a plot of burial land, and to ensure her a proper funeral.  She said this most tactfully. Her words were simple; just a hint, really. Then she sighed. She sighed more than she talked about burial ceremonies and funerals.  Mother said she worried that I didn’t have any money, that I couldn’t possibly arrange for a proper funeral for her.
But, Ma, I said, don’t you worry.  I’d rather deal with taking care of you now, and in the next few years. And you shouldn’t eat all that fattening food anyway. I don’t want you to have a heart attack… Don’t you read the newspaper? They talk about it on TV, all the time, as often as they report about the fighting and killings in the Middle East. You go ahead and eat all that stuff… all the butter, and fatty pork with anchovy sauce, and stewed meat with coconut milk… You’ll just have a heart attack.
I was really worried that if mother continued on such a diet, she would have a heart attack. Or she’d have a blood blockage. All of a sudden, while she’s walking about, she might just drop down on the ground. A blood clot in her brain. She’d be in a coma in the hospital. Lose her memory. Be paralyzed.
Mother sighed. Oh, I’m not going to think about that, she said. I’ll die before then. Don’t you worry. I won’t live that long.
Then, inevitably, mother hung up. All I heard was a few seconds of silence. Then, click.
I tried calling a few days later. Ma? Is that you? What are you doing?
Nothing, mother answered. Where are you? Are you at work or at home? You coming to dinner? I have boiled pork with shrimp sauce. Or are you having junk food out on the streets?
We talked, as usual about mundane things, and then she voiced her worry again.  You never even talk about a funeral with me. Before I could formulate my words, she’d hung up again.
It’s been this tug of war between us for a few months now. The topics of our conversations don’t change much, and I often know that I shouldn’t be annoyed with her habit of hanging up in the midst of a conversation, leaving me with a moment of baffling and hurtful silence.
Mother? Hello? Are you still listening? Did you just hang up again already?
In the end, I come to realize a few things. I know I shouldn’t be annoyed at all.  I know she’s being patient. She’s waiting. For when I am able to talk, to say, mother, I am ready.
But I know I will never be ready for the day when she’s really no longer at the other end of the line.
And so these days when I call, we talk about mundane things. About nothing that really matters.
Are you watching TV, Ma? Have you had dinner yet?
Yes, I’m watching TV. I’m watching that singer. Ai Van or something or rather, singing whatever that song is called. She’s quite good. Are you coming to dinner? There’s Hue beef noodle soup.
I say, no, I don’t want any Hue beef noodle soup. It’s so fattening.
Then I go too far. Ma, don’t eat too much of that beef noodle. Don’t eat anything too salty. Or that pan-fried dish, nothing but oil. Don’t forget to take a walk.
Mother doesn’t say anything.
Ma, ma, I’m talking to you. Are you hearing me? Are you still there? Hello? Ma, Ma?