Published May. 16, 2021
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Finding her mother's silver tin of gifts received from her late father
and carefully touching each memento.
- Coming second in the school-wide egg and spoon race.
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Singing in a two-minute spot on the only broadcast channel in the
country.
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Finishing graduate school in spite of all the protests that she ought
to focus on getting married.
- Taking home her newborn son after a protracted hospitalization.
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Crawling around the apartment playing with her kids to turn "run from
the cockroaches" into a fun game.
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Leaving her son looking back wistfully for his first day of school.
And sitting outside the school for hours afterwards just in case
something went wrong.
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Reading her daughter's first Father's Day card, remembering the brown
paper craft tie glued on and the misspelt message of "I lov mi dad!"
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Spending hours beside her dying mother getting recipes written nowhere
and passed to no others.
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Preparing new dishes for her adult children, grateful to COVID for
providing a rare opportunity to be under the same roof.
These are my mother's most valued collection of treasures. A collection
of simple memories punctuating the circle of life of a bygone era, of a
full human life.
This inheritance, this remembrance, I realized today that these same
memories will one day be my most valued collection of treasures.