...Please be honest!? As soon as the elevator doors slid open to the ninth floor, I heard my aunt calling my name excitedly. “Sophie! Sophie, ahh!" I followed the voice around the corner and saw that the door was opened wide. She stood there wearing a soft and delightfully jubilant expression on her face. After we exchanged greetings, she hastily ushered me into a pair of well-worn house slippers that were blue and plush. I noticed that the ones my aunt was wearing were gray and tatted.
It had been three years since I had last visited her little apartment in Changzhou. I had spent many amazing summers here and I was looking forward to coming back to the familiar sights of the old kitchen and the drying clothes hung outside. While my father and my aunt were talking and settling down, I began to walk around the house, curious as to what had changed. I noticed that nearly everything had stayed in place since I was last there. My books from childhood were still positioned deftly on the shelf and the same rose-patterned tablecloth that lay over the small square table. The only thing I saw that had changed was the abundance of photographs. There were photographs of my family all over the house. They were mostly of my aunt's nieces and nephews, including ones of my brother and me, and her siblings and their parents. The photographs were pressed neatly into frames that were arranged across tables, shelves, and night stands. They sat still as silent reminders of what things used to be like, before most of our family left China for America, including my aunt’s only daughter.
My aunt is one of those people who has so much love to give. Every gesture of her selfless love was genuine with a pure honesty that is rare in many people. She is the kind of person that would refill your teacup without being asked to or check to make sure you’ve got enough blankets for the night. I always saw her as a constant presence of love. However, I began to realize that my aunt had sufferings she never spoke of. I saw that she was lonely; I could see it in her eyes and through her half-hearted laugh. She sacrificed her own wants and needs to ensure the happiness of other people, even if it meant letting go of the people she loved.
Feeling dumbfounded by such compassion, I sat back and reflected on myself, realizing how selfish I was by contrast. As a teenager, I focused so much on all aspects of myself, ranging from physical appearance choices to major life decisions such as where I will be going to college. It’s so easy to get so caught up the superficial American teenage culture which revolves around self-desires; you can rarely step back and think, what about my family? What about my friends? What about other people? I rarely ever thought about things like deciding to help my brother with his homework instead of watching Skins, or simply taking some time to ask about my grandmother’s day. I realized I wanted to be a more compassionate person and I strove to do that by thinking about other people for a change.
I remember at eleven o’clock on my last night, when the dishes had been cleared and the table was wiped twice, I walked into the kitchen. My aunt was at the sink, her back turned and shoulders drooped dejectedly, with her hands scrubbing at the dishes. Hearing me come in, she turned around and smiled widely, the corners of her eyes crinkling jovially. Ignoring my reluctance to touch, I wrapped my arms around her, embracing her with a thousand words of comfort and assurance that I couldn’t speak in Chinese.
I knew she understood me perfectly when she told me softly, “Don’t worry about me.”
It had been three years since I had last visited her little apartment in Changzhou. I had spent many amazing summers here and I was looking forward to coming back to the familiar sights of the old kitchen and the drying clothes hung outside. While my father and my aunt were talking and settling down, I began to walk around the house, curious as to what had changed. I noticed that nearly everything had stayed in place since I was last there. My books from childhood were still positioned deftly on the shelf and the same rose-patterned tablecloth that lay over the small square table. The only thing I saw that had changed was the abundance of photographs. There were photographs of my family all over the house. They were mostly of my aunt's nieces and nephews, including ones of my brother and me, and her siblings and their parents. The photographs were pressed neatly into frames that were arranged across tables, shelves, and night stands. They sat still as silent reminders of what things used to be like, before most of our family left China for America, including my aunt’s only daughter.
My aunt is one of those people who has so much love to give. Every gesture of her selfless love was genuine with a pure honesty that is rare in many people. She is the kind of person that would refill your teacup without being asked to or check to make sure you’ve got enough blankets for the night. I always saw her as a constant presence of love. However, I began to realize that my aunt had sufferings she never spoke of. I saw that she was lonely; I could see it in her eyes and through her half-hearted laugh. She sacrificed her own wants and needs to ensure the happiness of other people, even if it meant letting go of the people she loved.
Feeling dumbfounded by such compassion, I sat back and reflected on myself, realizing how selfish I was by contrast. As a teenager, I focused so much on all aspects of myself, ranging from physical appearance choices to major life decisions such as where I will be going to college. It’s so easy to get so caught up the superficial American teenage culture which revolves around self-desires; you can rarely step back and think, what about my family? What about my friends? What about other people? I rarely ever thought about things like deciding to help my brother with his homework instead of watching Skins, or simply taking some time to ask about my grandmother’s day. I realized I wanted to be a more compassionate person and I strove to do that by thinking about other people for a change.
I remember at eleven o’clock on my last night, when the dishes had been cleared and the table was wiped twice, I walked into the kitchen. My aunt was at the sink, her back turned and shoulders drooped dejectedly, with her hands scrubbing at the dishes. Hearing me come in, she turned around and smiled widely, the corners of her eyes crinkling jovially. Ignoring my reluctance to touch, I wrapped my arms around her, embracing her with a thousand words of comfort and assurance that I couldn’t speak in Chinese.
I knew she understood me perfectly when she told me softly, “Don’t worry about me.”