By Helena
奶奶在南瓜园为我们排的全家福 Family portrait at the pumpkin patch, photo taken by Nainai
Seven weeks after my younger son was born, a fever took the floor out from under me. I kept trying to mother at the same pace anyway; counting feeds, watching the clock, insisting I could do it even as the hot–cold waves made the room tilt.
My parents, who happened to be visiting from Los Angeles, insisted harder. Bit by bit, I handed the tasks over, surprised at how naturally they changed diapers, rocked him, fed bottles, kept him content. My mom pressed warm bowls of soup into my hands and boiled towels for me over and over, her own sweat beading on her forehead. She looked at me with tender eyes whenever she said to me, “Go sleep。
My dad quietly took care of my every meal ― stir‑fried noodles, hand-made meat pies, my favorite rice noodle soup ― then went out for groceries, earned a San Francisco parking ticket, and fell asleep on the couch. Somewhere in the surrender, I felt a safety I hadn’t felt since I was a child. Every night, when they left, I missed them. When they drove back to LA, I cried. I knew they would worry about me. It was then that I felt more deeply than ever: before I carried my boys, I was carried too.
Now, little hands fill my days. Little hands that grip a bowl I steady. Little hands that pat my cheeks until they hurt from laughing. Little hands I look at with wonder, with pinkies curved just like mine and seemingly bigger every time I look at them. It occurs to me that once upon a time, my parents must have looked at my little hands this way too, back when they showed me that love was shaped from ordinary, simple things.
Helena with her Elder Son
I first learned this shape in Wenzhou. On afternoons, I waited for the outline of my my dad’s bicycle to appear in our narrow alley. He would ride home in a white collared shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow, gray slacks and shoes worn soft with years. His hands ― the rough, tanned hands of a carpenter ― would take a blank sheet of paper and write math problems for me, neat columns of numbers that made me feel seen and capable. We sat on stools outside our door while neighbors passed by with dinner in their arms. Sometimes a live chicken became a meal in the open air: the swift slit, the draining, the steam and feathers, nobody startled because this was simply life. Inside that ordinariness, my dad’s pencil scratched, and I found that love was a page filled with math problems someone made just for you.
Grandpa with his yonger grand son
My mom’s love often arrived in packages of care I did not yet have words for. When I first came to the United States at seven, I didn’t speak any English. We lived in a small, cozy apartment where everything felt new. One afternoon, my mom came home with a sealed cassette‑and‑book set of The Lion King, the hottest movie at the time, unbeknownst to me. I don’t remember asking for this, so she must have seen a gap I could not name yet: a way to enter a language. We cut open the plastic together. The cassette clicked into the player, the tape whirred, and a new soundscape filled our living room, my mom watching with satisfaction. Later, I noticed she would often buy nothing for herself when we went shopping. She would not buy socks she needed, but she bought me a new world through books. Now that I’m a mother, I recognize the same love, of tiny things that light up your kids.
Odie
I carried these scenes with me into Sundays with my first son, which became our special day when my husband was at work. Sundays were holy to me, not because we went to church, but for the quiet covenant between my son and me to delight in the everyday. I would pull him in a wagon to Golden Gate Park and follow the music to the public piano. Big yellow chairs bloomed around it like sunflowers. We sat. I would hand him a snack. Helistened with his whole body, head tilted, eyes wide, the afternoon turned soft by melody. We would clap when the song ended, played by one of the regulars at the keys.
大儿子成成坐在金门公园的黄椅子上听钢琴，那时他1岁10个月 Big brother when he was still an only child sitting on the yellow chairs in Golden Gate Park listening to the public piano, 1 year and 10 months
We would keep walking to the amphitheater, where summer Sundays brought free concerts. One day, an orchestra played Studio Ghibli scores, and we stayed to the end, perched on the green benches with the other audience members. Every Sunday was the same, and it was precious every time.
I know now that motherhood trains you to carry others without setting yourself down; and immigrant life trains you to hustle, to carry your own weight and then some, to become useful fast. In this bustle, I had forgotten how to be cared for. The fever knocked a hole in those habits and I fell through, to a place where my parents caught me. They showed me that the work of love is not always heroic in form. It is repeating, it is rhythmic, it is the metronome of washing dishes, the boiled towel, the couch nap taken in the middle of a long day because you’ve given all your energy away and will give it again when someone calls.
Tow brothers play together
I used to think gratitude was a feeling I kept inside, a soft light I turned toward my parents a few times a year in awkward greetings of love. But the older I get, the more I understand gratitude as inheritance. It’s something I hand down in the rhythm of my days. It’s the way I tuck a blanket over a sleeping child, the way I cut fruit and press a bowl into small hands, the way I make time slow on Sundays. Perhaps the house is not immaculate and the laundry is not folded, but I am present, sitting on the floor drawing their favorite cartoon for them. What my parents placed in my hands is a way of loving that lasts ― quiet, repeating, steady.
Helena with her younger son
And when my sons are grown and far from me, I hope that when they see their childhood books or hear a piano in a park or eat fruit on a tired night, they will feel carried, too. This is my gratitude and my parents’ legacy, one ordinary moment at a time. This is what my parents gave me, and it’s what I’m trying to give on. 10/2025
