Mother's Day

I met my mother for the first time when I was 11, then she vanished again. Later I recognized her in a magazine article. I wasn’t sure if that was my mother, so I looked up birth certificate to compare my mother’s name with the person in the magazine. Only then I learned that my mother was Yeh Su Nee, one of the most popular Hong Kong writers whose novels fill entire shelves in any bookstore. So far I have successfully repressed my mother from my life: wouldn’t it be better to go on like that? Is it not too late for a 44-year-old who has a child of his own to search his 65-year-old mother whom he doesn’t even know and flood her with questions? I surely want to find her and try to imagine her voice. How nervous will I be calling her? I’ll probably say something like, “Hello, it’s me, Bin Chuen Choi, your son. Shall we meet?” But how will she react? Perhaps she’ll refuse to see me or say, “It did take you very long to call. Let’s go eat Dim Sum. I know a good spot downtown.”