Tonight, I want to share a bit of my last moment as a son to my mom with you as she has now gone for exactly 1 year, 2 months and 2 days and I still feel like she is still with us because I didn’t get to see her that often when she were still alive anyway due to distance. What I want to share tonight really is something she shared with me during my last visit 6 months before she finally said good bye to us. That was January of 2016.
My son Peter and daughter Crystal also went with me to visit them. Despite my promise to show my kids around Thailand, we ended up spending almost our entire time staying with her and my dad in their little house. For some reason, I felt like I just didn’t want to leave them too soon. On our last few days there, I asked mom what would be her most favorite meal of all and that I’d like to personally cook for her. She told me that she loves slow cook pork (the head portion).
I immediately went the nearby town and bought the only pig head they have in that local meat store and brought it home to show her. It was big she said. I also bought fruits and lots of other stuff and asked my mom to wait to eat her favorite meal with me that night before she goes to bed and she did.
I also bought some herbs to cook with the pig head. I started by cleaning the pig head really well and put in the pot with water, salt, herbs simply let it cooked for about 4 hours on a Hmong home woodstove style, where I must pay attention the entire time by adding more wood to the stove. It was 9:00pm when the pig head fully cooked and the meat portions started to fall off their bones. I cut off each part into smaller pieces with a Hmong sharp hunting knife and scooped the meat off the bones with spoon.
I also bought some herbs to cook with the pig head. I started by cleaning the pig head really well and put in the pot with water, salt, herbs simply let it cooked for about 4 hours on a Hmong home woodstove style, where I must pay attention the entire time by adding more wood to the stove. It was 9:00pm when the pig head fully cooked and the meat portions started to fall off their bones. I cut off each part into smaller pieces with a Hmong sharp hunting knife and scooped the meat off the bones with spoon.
Then it was time to serve her favorite meal and I did. I also took out the pork brain and made a special hot dip for her. I served the tender meat with the soup, the hot dip of the pig brain with soft and tender white rice. I sat next to her and watch my mom enjoyed her meal. During this special moment that she shared with me her stories of regrets and happiness from her life. She shared her mistakes in life, regrets and those happy moments that she never could forget. She told me that she hope that I forgive her for not being able to be the best role model mom that every child wished for and that I would not forget her or dad. She also told me that due to war, they left their homeland of Laos with nothing and that she did not have anything for me or my sisters. She wished that I would build my life from a strong foundation that I have created for my own and never give up moving forward. She said one day after she was long gone she wished that I would still remember her (she was crying). I asked her not to worry and that she would still live for a long time and we would have plenty of time to talk about stuff like that some other time, not during her favorite meal. She smiled and continue her meal. I remember she ate so much that night. She would joked that she finally got to eat her favorite meal from her son and it would give a long long life and for many more pig heads. After her meal, I cleaned the table and we went to bed. The next morning, my kids and I said our usual goodbye and left to Chiangmai for a tour I promised my kids.
In around June 2016, she fell and broke her hip bones. The story goes that she used one of the cane that I bought for her a few years earlier and the handle broke off and she failed hitting the cement ladder at one of our relative’s house. She suffered severe pain and quickly became total disable and unable to care for herself and needed care. My older sister and her husband from MN flew to visit her immediately and took care of her for around 3 weeks. I purchased new wheelchair and bought diapers and arranged for my brothers to care for her. After my sister returned home, my brother then took my mom back to the district hospital. He was told that my mom is too old for hip replacement, but there was some chance that she could recover. We all agreed and decided to go for it and the hospital did. They operated on her and placed three long metal pieces attached to her hips. About a week after the hip surgery, she couldn’t take the pain anymore and left us at the hospital on Aug 17, 2016. It was Thursday, Aug 18, 2016 here in the US. I then flew back to Thailand to prepare for her funeral. It was the saddest and the longest flight I’ve took in my life. I literary cried my eyes out.
What I want to share tonight is not the sadness or the sorrow, but what I have learned to accept some of the things that I never thought possible before. Having been through this difficult chapter in my life, I’ve learned that my mom already knew her faith when she asked me to make her favorite meal back in January of 2016. She also offered faith in my future and showed me her happiness moment when she had her favorite meal with me. She probably knew that I’d be OK and felt confident in my ability to move forward. Life for her was not money, fame, or power, but family, love and happiness. What I learned from my mom was how at peace she was at the end of her life. It was a very simple life and wanted nothing more than seeing her kids grow up, got married, having their own kids and spent her entire life with my father, who has been by her side since the first day they met back in early 1963 in Laos.
WE MISS YOU DEARLY MOM.
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