Illustration by Alex Chen
First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
“Hello, pretty girl!”
This is how we greet each other now on video calls, loudly, with an exaggerated smile. She is always in the kitchen prepping breakfast when I call across a 12-hour time difference. I can almost smell the hot steamed buns, congee, with a side of fruits.
I haven’t seen my mom in six years. Somewhere between distance and time, “mom” became someone I can casually call “pretty girl.”
This is not how we used to be.
I was the daughter with potential. The one who was expected to do well in school, to make something of herself. At the age of 18, moving from China to Canada was my golden ticket to freedom. It was my way out of rules and control, my chance to figure out who I was without someone watching closely.
But distance didn’t soften things between us. It made them sharper.
In the first few years, we argued often. She questioned my choices – the relationship I was in, the way I spent money, the fact that I didn’t call enough. I was ready to become an adult, but she always made me feel like a dumb teenager who needed her supervision.
When the pandemic hit, everything shifted quietly, then all at once.
My dad’s company declared bankruptcy. On the other continent, I was shielded from this family crisis. My parents and older sister carried the weight of it. They told me they were fine, and sold our home, packed all their things and moved to the other side of the country, leaving the city that no longer held a place for their dreams.
Without their financial support, I was on my own with my part-time job at a bubble tea store, then two gap years from school to work full-time, saving up for my last year of undergrad. The financial strain was bad, but the overwhelming guilt felt worse.
Following the monarch butterfly’s migratory journey from my garden to Mexico
Being far away while my family fell apart quietly on the other side of the world felt heavier than anything I could name.
They say love conquers it all.
But love does not fix bad WiFi on international video calls.
It does not take your mother to the doctor when her back hurts.
It does not help your sister pack your shared childhood bedroom.
The only thing I could offer was the version of me that showed up on the screen. Sometimes laughing, sometimes talking too much, sometimes crying, sometimes just listening. On the screen, my mom watched me finish school, graduate and navigate adulthood.
I didn’t realize when she stopped treating me as a know-nothing child.
The authority I once felt from her softened. The distance that used to isolate us became space for me to start seeing her not only as my mother, but as a person.
“Before your mom was your mom, she was also just a girl.” I shared this quote at my book club, and all the women in the room nodded.
My mom is the youngest of three. In that traditional, patriarchal Chinese household, her sister learned to bend, to serve, to disappear into duty and make quiet sacrifices for their father and brother. She did not.
She was loud. Stubborn. Certain in the way only someone who was ready to fight for their space can be. She wanted things for herself. She wanted things for her daughters, too. She bought us a piano, art supplies, a guitar, a camera, whatever books we wanted and anything we showed interest in learning. In her generation, people said girls should be raised with abundance, so their standards stay high, and they won’t be won over by small things. She believed that deeply.
The joy of communicating by pen and paper
She was not the perfect mom. Some of my deepest wounds are from her.
The slaps on my face when I talked back as a child. The disappointment after a failed math exam. All the yelling, crying and words we could not take back.
For a long time, those were the only versions of her I carried.
But now, I notice other things.
In my kitchen, I wonder if I look like her when I cook. When I catch myself making myself smaller, I think of her standing tall at 5’1, feeling so sure of herself in a world that did not make space easily. When I share my love, I wonder if pieces of her are being passed on to people she has never met.
When I feel overwhelmed by the future, I think about how she once held everything together. A clean home, three hot meals, even during bankruptcy. In the middle of all the mess life could give you, she kept fighting.
We call each other “pretty girl” now.
Sometimes I think this is the closest we have come to seeing each other, not as mother and daughter, but as two women trying to recognize each other across time, distance and everything we don’t know how to say.
I used to think becoming my own person meant becoming nothing like my mom. Now, I’m not sure.
I see her in the way I love life. In the way I hold things together. In the way I worry. In the way I move through life with borrowed confidence, hoping one day it will finally become mine.
She is someone I’m still learning how to understand. And I feel so lucky that I still have many years for that.
Anmiao Wu lives in Ottawa.