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Great Detail Challenge Meme
Day 03 – Your parents, in great detail
I've told you a lot about my father already, so let me tell you about the love of his life--my mother.
Her name is Maria, but she goes by Mary because she got sick of people mispronouncing her name. She's from Monterrey, Mexico. When she was about five, her family moved from Mexico to Chicago. That's where she learned English, and by the time they moved back to Mexico a few years later, she had to be placed in a private school because she had forgotten all of her Spanish.
My mother is not an educated woman. She is very intelligent, but she is not educated. She never finished school. She never saw any point to it. She had other interests and her mother (my grandmother) never thought school was that important anyway. She always knew that when she was older she would be a housewife and a mother, and she didn't see any reason she would need to know about biology or trigonometry to do those things.
And she didn't. She doesn't know about any of those things and she is an amazing housewife and mother. Call me biased, but I think she is the best mother. She has always supported me in whatever I've wanted to pursue, from ballet to gymnastics to karate to lolita. She's never said no, just "If you really want to do it, we'll see how we can make it happen."
After my father died however, she suddenly found herself thrust into a role as the provider for our family. It was a role she was woefully unprepared for. And yet despite the fact that she never finished her basic schooling, she entered college in an attempt to gain the skills necessary to take care of her children. It's been a struggle for her, but she's managed to make it through a good number of classes.
My mom works very hard when she never expected to. It's aged her so much, and I see how much she struggles with it every day. This is a life she never wanted, but she has made the best of it for my brother and myself. I'd like to be able to repay her, sooner rather than later. It's why I chose to go back to Party City, why I decided to just get my ass into gear and get a degree-any degree--so that I can help to alleviate this burden she never wanted to carry. Whenever I get tired or upset that I have to work weekends, or that I feel the need to pick up extra shifts at work, or that I have paid the mortgage one month, I think about how hard Mom has worked to keep our house and keep us fed when she never wanted to work at all. She has been a good mother and provided well for me, and I would like to be able to return that favor as soon as I can.
Now, a funny story about my dad.
My dad's name was Hak. He grew up just outside of Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. He was part Khmer, and part Chinese. His family lived comfortably, at a time when Cambodia was beginning to flourish, before the Khmer Rouge took over. He studied at a Buddhist temple and spoke French fluently. When he was a child, he had an uncle who raised elephants. I have no idea why. When my dad was bored, he would walk over to the elephant farm and play in the mud with the baby elephants. This was his favorite story to tell me.
He also told me that if I ate on my stomach, I would turn into a crocodile and he would throw me down the sewer.
He liked to quiz me about various little trivia facts. He would wrack his brain everyday to come up with a question for me. I never liked it because he always asked hard questions, but he always thought I loved it and would get very upset when he couldn't think of anything to ask me. He knew how many ridges were on a dime, and always took me to work with him when he wanted to get off early. One time, I asked him for new shoes, and somehow he talked me into getting just one shoe. After I realized that I would have one bare foot, I started to cry and so he said he would give me the other shoe as an early birthday present. It was April; my birthday is in August.
One day, he tried planting peanuts in our backyard, but all of the squirrels ate them before he could pick them. After that, he always complained about smart squirrels eating his peanuts.
He made us a slide and a swing and tree house. He made my brother's bedroom furniture and tiled our whole first house. If there was something he didn't know how to do, he'd learn it. He'd go to the hardware store and ask everyone he could find how to do the same thing, so that he would know different ways of doing it.
He'd go to the supermarket on weekends and eat a whole meal from just the sample platters. He would take me with him, and I would be sure to wear my rubber sandals so that we would match, and I would walk alongside him holding onto his shirt corner.
He liked pink and hated Elvis. When he told me I was going to inherit his truck, I cried because I thought only boys drove trucks and I would have to turn into a boy.
When TS Allison swept through Houston, he was stuck at work, flooded in. He and another man broke into all of the vending machines and survived off of chips and chocolate bars and sodas for three days while they waited for the water to go down since they had both parked below street level in a garage.
He liked to take walks to the corner and our old cat Tammy would always follow him there and back. He called all our cats "stupid cats" but he was always the one that held them the most.
Late at night, he would wake me up and take me out for milkshakes. He always put up the Christmas lights and Halloween decorations and set off fireworks. He loved all of the holidays so much.
That was more than one story, but I couldn't stop at just one. I love him a lot and I miss him. I got my feet from him and my mouth and my slanty eyes. When I was in second grade a boy tried insulting me by calling me Chinese. I smiled at him and said, "I'm not Chinese, I just look like my daddy!"
Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love, in great detail
Day 04 – What you ate today, in great detail
Day 05 – Your definition of love, in great detail
Day 06 – Your day, in great detail
Day 07 – Your best friend, in great detail
Day 08 – A moment, in great detail
Day 09 – Your beliefs, in great detail
Day 10 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 11 – Your siblings, in great detail
Day 12 – What’s in your bag, in great detail
Day 13 – This week, in great detail
Day 14 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 15 – Your dreams, in great detail
Day 16 – Your first kiss, in great detail
Day 17 – Your favorite memory, in great detail
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday, in great detail
Day 19 – Something you regret, in great detail
Day 20 – This month, in great detail
Day 21 – Another moment, in great detail
Day 22 – Something that upsets you, in great detail
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry, in great detail
Day 25 – A first, in great detail
Day 26 – Your fears, in great detail
Day 27 – Your favorite place, in great detail
Day 28 – Something that you miss, in great detail
Day 29 – Your aspirations, in great detail
Day 30 – One last moment, in great detail
Day 03 – Your parents, in great detail
I've told you a lot about my father already, so let me tell you about the love of his life--my mother.
Her name is Maria, but she goes by Mary because she got sick of people mispronouncing her name. She's from Monterrey, Mexico. When she was about five, her family moved from Mexico to Chicago. That's where she learned English, and by the time they moved back to Mexico a few years later, she had to be placed in a private school because she had forgotten all of her Spanish.
My mother is not an educated woman. She is very intelligent, but she is not educated. She never finished school. She never saw any point to it. She had other interests and her mother (my grandmother) never thought school was that important anyway. She always knew that when she was older she would be a housewife and a mother, and she didn't see any reason she would need to know about biology or trigonometry to do those things.
And she didn't. She doesn't know about any of those things and she is an amazing housewife and mother. Call me biased, but I think she is the best mother. She has always supported me in whatever I've wanted to pursue, from ballet to gymnastics to karate to lolita. She's never said no, just "If you really want to do it, we'll see how we can make it happen."
After my father died however, she suddenly found herself thrust into a role as the provider for our family. It was a role she was woefully unprepared for. And yet despite the fact that she never finished her basic schooling, she entered college in an attempt to gain the skills necessary to take care of her children. It's been a struggle for her, but she's managed to make it through a good number of classes.
My mom works very hard when she never expected to. It's aged her so much, and I see how much she struggles with it every day. This is a life she never wanted, but she has made the best of it for my brother and myself. I'd like to be able to repay her, sooner rather than later. It's why I chose to go back to Party City, why I decided to just get my ass into gear and get a degree-any degree--so that I can help to alleviate this burden she never wanted to carry. Whenever I get tired or upset that I have to work weekends, or that I feel the need to pick up extra shifts at work, or that I have paid the mortgage one month, I think about how hard Mom has worked to keep our house and keep us fed when she never wanted to work at all. She has been a good mother and provided well for me, and I would like to be able to return that favor as soon as I can.
Now, a funny story about my dad.
My dad's name was Hak. He grew up just outside of Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. He was part Khmer, and part Chinese. His family lived comfortably, at a time when Cambodia was beginning to flourish, before the Khmer Rouge took over. He studied at a Buddhist temple and spoke French fluently. When he was a child, he had an uncle who raised elephants. I have no idea why. When my dad was bored, he would walk over to the elephant farm and play in the mud with the baby elephants. This was his favorite story to tell me.
He also told me that if I ate on my stomach, I would turn into a crocodile and he would throw me down the sewer.
He liked to quiz me about various little trivia facts. He would wrack his brain everyday to come up with a question for me. I never liked it because he always asked hard questions, but he always thought I loved it and would get very upset when he couldn't think of anything to ask me. He knew how many ridges were on a dime, and always took me to work with him when he wanted to get off early. One time, I asked him for new shoes, and somehow he talked me into getting just one shoe. After I realized that I would have one bare foot, I started to cry and so he said he would give me the other shoe as an early birthday present. It was April; my birthday is in August.
One day, he tried planting peanuts in our backyard, but all of the squirrels ate them before he could pick them. After that, he always complained about smart squirrels eating his peanuts.
He made us a slide and a swing and tree house. He made my brother's bedroom furniture and tiled our whole first house. If there was something he didn't know how to do, he'd learn it. He'd go to the hardware store and ask everyone he could find how to do the same thing, so that he would know different ways of doing it.
He'd go to the supermarket on weekends and eat a whole meal from just the sample platters. He would take me with him, and I would be sure to wear my rubber sandals so that we would match, and I would walk alongside him holding onto his shirt corner.
He liked pink and hated Elvis. When he told me I was going to inherit his truck, I cried because I thought only boys drove trucks and I would have to turn into a boy.
When TS Allison swept through Houston, he was stuck at work, flooded in. He and another man broke into all of the vending machines and survived off of chips and chocolate bars and sodas for three days while they waited for the water to go down since they had both parked below street level in a garage.
He liked to take walks to the corner and our old cat Tammy would always follow him there and back. He called all our cats "stupid cats" but he was always the one that held them the most.
Late at night, he would wake me up and take me out for milkshakes. He always put up the Christmas lights and Halloween decorations and set off fireworks. He loved all of the holidays so much.
That was more than one story, but I couldn't stop at just one. I love him a lot and I miss him. I got my feet from him and my mouth and my slanty eyes. When I was in second grade a boy tried insulting me by calling me Chinese. I smiled at him and said, "I'm not Chinese, I just look like my daddy!"
Day 01 – Introduce yourself
Day 02 – Your first love, in great detail
Day 04 – What you ate today, in great detail
Day 05 – Your definition of love, in great detail
Day 06 – Your day, in great detail
Day 07 – Your best friend, in great detail
Day 08 – A moment, in great detail
Day 09 – Your beliefs, in great detail
Day 10 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 11 – Your siblings, in great detail
Day 12 – What’s in your bag, in great detail
Day 13 – This week, in great detail
Day 14 – What you wore today, in great detail
Day 15 – Your dreams, in great detail
Day 16 – Your first kiss, in great detail
Day 17 – Your favorite memory, in great detail
Day 18 – Your favorite birthday, in great detail
Day 19 – Something you regret, in great detail
Day 20 – This month, in great detail
Day 21 – Another moment, in great detail
Day 22 – Something that upsets you, in great detail
Day 23 – Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
Day 24 – Something that makes you cry, in great detail
Day 25 – A first, in great detail
Day 26 – Your fears, in great detail
Day 27 – Your favorite place, in great detail
Day 28 – Something that you miss, in great detail
Day 29 – Your aspirations, in great detail
Day 30 – One last moment, in great detail
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