Then she said something that made me feel like
<
“Honey, I have a distant cousin who lives in
New Haven. Not everyone can live there. I’ve decided, when you get into grad school, I’ll
move to New Haven with you…”
I didn’t hear anything else she said.
I felt like I was blind and deaf.
I couldn’t see her face or hear her voice.
I fell into an abyss.
After day after the New Year, my mom went
back to work.
That afternoon, while I was daydreaming by the
window, I received a call.
It was from the restaurant owner.
He said my mom had been injured.
<
3:42
When I arrived at the hospital, I found out her
leg was broken.
It turned out that on that day, there weren’t
many customers.
While working, my mom had an encounter with a couple and their mischievous eight–year–old
daughter.
The girl was constantly on her phone or running
around.
My mom scoffed and said to her boss, “If that were my daughter, I’d have disciplined her long ago. Parents who spoil their kids like this–how
can the kids amount to anything?”
My mom always had a loud voice.
And it had grown louder as my grades.
improved.
<
Since I got into NYU, she had taken to shouting.
The young couple took offense.
An argument ensued, and the man, in a fit of
rage, struck my mom’s leg with a chair,
breaking it.
The couple paid for the medical expenses and
an additional 4,000 dollars. My mom settled
with them.
But with her leg injured, she could no longer
work.
So, she had to return to the dorm to
recuperate.
By the time she was able to walk again, my
freshman year was over.
She had hoped a year or so would suffice for
3:42
recovery, but unfortunately, she developed
complications.
She could no longer work.
Taking this opportunity, I suggested she return
to our hometown.
But she stubbornly refused.
“Why should I go back to that crappy place? A godforsaken village, nothing like New York. I’m a New York resident now, and I’m never going
back!”
She insisted on staying.
She continued living at my school.
Without any income, her money from selling the
house was locked in a term deposit, and she
refused to touch it.
56, our living conditions worsened.
proposed that I get a part–time job to help make ends meet.
But my mom was worried it might affect my grad school preparation.
In the end, she came up with a brilliant idea.
She had me apply for a student loan.
So, we managed to get by on student loans and
the school’s assistance.
And that’s how we scraped through.
11
After graduation, many of my classmates went
straight into the workforce.
Isperally sent out my resume too
3:42
I secretly sent out my resume too.
83
But for someone like me, staying in New York
was nearly impossible.
Yet back in my hometown, the finance bureau, the audit bureau, and the government were all
vying for me.
When I told my mom and shared my desire to
go back home, she slapped me twice.
She said I was short–sighted.
She insisted that getting into Yale for graduate
studies was the real start of a brilliant future.
I told her I still had student loans to pay off.
Without my degree, how could I even apply for
grad school?
Reluctantly my mom withdrew some money
