(Part 1)
I last saw my mother in January 2009. She passed away in February 2025, and for 15 years, I never had the chance to see her again. She left this world with the sorrow of not being able to see her only daughter one final time. Her passing has left me heartbroken.
A Farmer’s Daughter
My mother was born in 1937, in a small village about 250 miles from Beijing, more than a decade before the Communist Party took power. Her mother—my grandmother—came from an affluent family that owned vast stretches of farmland. In those days, wealth carried not only privilege but also tradition, some beautiful, others cruel. One such tradition was foot binding, a practice handed down from the time of the emperors. Only wealthy families could afford it, hiring women whose families had bound girls’ feet for generations. For the poor, this was unthinkable—not out of mercy, but because they lacked the means to pay for the painful “service.”
My mother would say, “It was so painful—I could only bear it for a couple of days.” My grandmother had stopped the binding, unwilling to force her daughter to endure what she herself had suffered: a lifetime of pain from crushed, bent feet. Whenever my mother told this story, her eyes would brighten, and her voice would carry a quiet joy. She was grateful—grateful that her childhood belonged to a more open time, a time without an emperor, where she could walk freely on her own unbroken feet.
For thousands of years, arranged marriage was the norm in China. My grandmother’s father married her to my grandfather, a farmer who toiled in the fields to support his family. Their marriage, like so many at that time, was built on obligation rather than love—life was routine, not a shared joy. My mother would often tell me, “As your grandpa grew older, his temper softened. But when he was young, he was lazy, drank too much, lost his temper easily, and sometimes beat your grandma.” Her voice always carried a subtle edge, a mixture of disapproval and sadness. I could hear in her tone that she had little affection for her father, but a deep, enduring love for her mother.
Only Finished Fifth Grade
My mother loved school — the smell of ink on paper, the steady rhythm of lessons recited aloud. But she only finished fifth grade. As the second of seven children — three brothers and three sisters — she had to leave the classroom for the fields, working alongside the adults to help keep the family afloat.
“Your grandpa only let me and my older brother go to school whenever there was no work in the fields,” my mother would say, her voice tinged with both longing and resignation. She had dreamed of sitting in a classroom every day, holding books, and learning about the world beyond the village, but her schooling ended before she could reach middle or high school.
“I was a smart student,” she liked to add. “Every year, I missed two-thirds of the classes, but I could catch up quickly. My teachers liked me. Still, your grandpa scolded me if I went to school when he needed me to work. Sometimes I was the tallest one in the class—because I had repeated a grade.”
She told these stories often, weaving pride and loss into every word. More than anything, she wanted me to treasure the education she had been denied and to walk through every door of learning that had once been closed to her.
From the Fields to the Furnace
When my mother completed fifth grade, Mao Zedong’s Communist Party had just taken control of China. From 1949 to 1955, Mao launched a series of campaigns targeting landlords and farmers. Landlords and their families were arrested, publicly humiliated, and often executed. Within a short time, no landlords remained.
Farmers—once respected for their hard work and self-reliance—were suddenly branded as politically unreliable and incompatible with a socialist, communist society. Mao ordered the confiscation of their fields, the very land that had sustained their families for generations. Within three years, private ownership of farms had vanished. All land, Mao declared, now belonged to “the people”—in reality, the government. From then on, only peasants, as defined by the Communist Party, were permitted to work in agriculture.
“Your grandpa lost his farm, and your grandma’s dowry jewelry — beautiful bracelets, pure silver earrings, fine cloisonne hairpins, every precious thing —was taken,” my mother would tell me, her voice carrying both anger and sorrow. “We became peasants, poorer than we had ever been.”
She described how everyone was forced to work for the government-run cooperative. In the fields, the lazy strolled through their hours, barely touching the soil, yet they earned the same work credits as those who bent their backs from sunrise to sunset. Over time, the land itself seemed to grow tired. The soil thinned, turned dry and saline, and each year the harvest grew smaller. Hunger crept into the village, until people began walking to neighboring towns, knocking on strangers’ doors in search of a single handful of grain.
To help support her parents and younger siblings, my mother left the village with her two brothers, setting out for the cities in search of work. She was only seventeen, carrying little more than determination. Her first job was as an apprentice at the largest steel plant in Beijing—a place of roaring furnaces, clanging metal, and the constant smell of smoke. She worked at the steel factory for decades before retiring.
“As apprentices, we worked under strict mentors,” she would tell me. “They watched every move we made. We had no salary, only a small stipend. We ate in the plant’s enormous canteen, and at night ten of us crowded into one dorm room.”
My mother often recounted how she left behind the fields for the blast furnaces of the steel plant, taking pride in her courage and resilience. “I saved every penny,” she would say, “to send money home to your grandparents and to help your uncle study in Beijing. Later, he secured a good position in an energy plant.” Her love of learning, courage, and independence have always inspired me, and I believe I carry these qualities within me as her legacy.
“When your parents are alive, you don’t travel abroad.” But I did.
Confucius taught, “When your parents are alive, do not travel far from home.” I grew up with this belief, as did nearly every Chinese child. It was more than a saying—it was a moral rule, a measure of filial devotion. So, when I chose to travel abroad while my parents were still alive, I knew I was breaking with tradition. Relatives, neighbors, even friends saw it as neglecting my duty, a kind of “sin” in our culture. Still, I left, carrying both my dreams and the weight of their disapproval.
My mother once told me, “I used to think you were a good child—always listening to your parents, far more obedient than your brother.” Once, when I called my mother, her voice carried both love and desperation as she pleaded for me to return to China, to become again the ‘model’ Chinese woman—devoted to her husband, raising children, and serving both her own and her husband’s parents. I heard the longing in her words; the dream she still held for me. Yet, I could not give her that life. That woman she remembered is gone. I have become someone she never imagined—someone who chooses her own path.
In the last years before she passed away, my mother finally accepted that I would never move back. Her plea softened to a simple request: could I at least come home to visit her? “Mom, I will—as soon as I receive my travel documents,” I told her, forcing my voice to stay steady. She never knew the truth. I could not return. I had severed that path and burned that bridge the day I publicly denounced the Communist regime. The distance between us was no longer just miles—it was a line I could never cross again.
“I’m happy you like it there. As long as you’re happy, I’m happy. Knowing you’re safe, happy, and healthy is my greatest joy. Don’t worry about me—I’m doing fine.” In the final months of her life, my mother began ending every call with these words. I could hear the love in her voice, but also the quiet acceptance that we might never see each other again. Each time I set down the phone, tears would blur my eyes. There is no force on earth greater, or more selfless, than a mother’s love.