2002 - Alice Song Weekly 宋 旻 潔 週 記

Issue:614 Date: 05/30/2002

(16) 母親的快樂
Happy Mother's Day

On Sunday morning, I found Mrs. Wise, who used to have been busy in the kitchen, was sitting on the bed with a great smile. Her three kids, Michael, Mitchell and Madeline were sitting around her, and Mr. Wise was carefully giving out a special-cooked breakfast dish to her. So this is the Wises' tradition: breakfast in bed.

"Mother's day and my birthday are my best times." said Mrs. Wise. She got up early as usual, brushed her teeth and then went back to bed, waiting for her breakfast. Of course, the kids had put all kinds of cards and gifts around the dishes, the whole family gathered together, reading cards. The bedroom is under a loving, caring atmosphere with the young voices of good wishes.

Madeline is a very smart, lovely and creative 1st grade girl. She even started her mother's day plan long ago. A simple picture, a little can. They are just the most beautiful art work in Mrs. Wise's eyes. "What is the use of this can, Madeline? A pencil holder?" But that is what little Madeline said: " I don't know, mum, I just made this for you!?

What a cute answer! "I can buy really expensive things if I want to," said Mrs. Wise. "But this is what I really want!" Yes, the value is, I made this. This Is for you. Of course, Mrs. Wise got another special gift this year, that is a Chinese Knot. Many traditional handmade decorations are becoming popular in many Chinese cities since the image of statesmen in Tang coats on APEC spread all over. The written records of the art of knots even went far back to Tang Dynasty. Little Mitchell surprised me when he correctly talked about how red was luck when I tried to explain the Chinese Knot to Mrs. Wise.

Mitchell is a second-grade boy. He has a very high IQ, wearing a pair of big glasses. It seemed that he has come right out of Harry Potter series! Mitchell has just finished doing his culture box on China for school work. They are supposed to put the flag, the map and the housing samples in the box and they could choose three other things about the nation. Mitchell chose Chinese money, a bamboo and a clock with Chinese characters. The process itself is a really valuable experience.

The Sunday morning flew by. Mrs Wise was again busy in the kitchen during noon time. She told me she and Mr. Wise used to live in California before the birth of their kids. They enjoyed their successful career and free, fun life. But they decided to move to STL for a warm environment with grandparents before Michael was born. Mrs. Wise even gave up a great job to have more time with little Mitchell and Madeline after they were born. She joked that now she and Mr. Wise would not spend hours in adult restaurants as before. They will have a joyful, jumping and busy team to the family restaurants!

The depth of mother's love is not measurable. The happiness on Mother's Day is definitely not equal to the happiness they brought to the families all year round.

The last week

The last week of normal study is coming. It seemed that I just walked off the plane yesterday, just walked into SLUH yesterday. Four months just flew by. This week Mr. Murray has a big Chinese flag in his classroom. He told us it was a gift from the first Chinese exchange student. Mr. Murray was collecting flags from all nations at that time, he had flags all over his classroom. But not a Chinese one. So this student gave him the big Chinese flag, bigger than any of his other flags! So I started to wear an US flag badge the next day. "Thank you Alice," said Mr. Murray: "We are making this a world class now!"

I am handing out special Chinese style gifts too. Every present is not only a way of thanking them for the wonderful experiences but a new window of China as well. I want to leave something in memory of the nice exchanging experiences the whole semester.