Yi’s daughter sat at the table, pinching a pen and frowning. The paper had been scribbled on so many times that the ink was smudged, like a rain-beaten cobweb.
“What’s the writing?” I asked.
“Mom’s birthday card.” She replied, her eyes still fixed on the paper, her fingers twirling the corners uneasily.
I leaned in close to see a few lines crawling crookedly across the paper, “Happy Birthday, Dear Mom. Thank you for cooking for me and taking me to school every day. I love you.” The handwriting was childish, but the strokes were extremely serious.
“It’s very well written.” I said.
My daughter shook her head, “It’s not special enough. Mom receives a lot of cards every year, I want to write something different, so that she will be especially happy to read it and will always remember it.”
I laughed secretly. Children’s worries are sometimes more serious than adults’.
She suddenly looked up and her eyes lit up, “What do you think is Mommy’s favorite?”
I thought about it. Her mom often complained of back pain, and the first thing she did when she got home from work was to kick off her high heels; she loved to lie on the couch on weekends to catch up on dramas, and must have a packet of plums in her hand; her cell phone was full of pictures of her daughter, but she never refused to buy herself a new dress.
“Your mom’s favorite.” I said.
My daughter bristled, “Who doesn’t know that. I mean, besides me.”
The sun was shining just right outside the window, and a sycamore leaf drifted down on the windowsill. I suddenly remembered something.
“Do you remember last week, the lipstick your mom couldn’t find?”
My daughter nodded, “She rummaged through her bag and finally found it in the crack of the couch. She was so happy that day, she said it was her favorite color.”
“Do you know why she liked that lipstick so much?”
My daughter shook her head.
“It was a birthday present you bought her when you were three years old with your saved allowance. It’s a little more colorful, but every time she puts it on she says, ‘This is from my baby girl’.”
My daughter’s eyes widened, “Really? I don’t even remember that.”
“Your mom remembers.” I said.
My daughter suddenly grabbed a pen and scribbled rapidly on the paper. This time, she didn’t pause or scribble. When she finished writing, she carefully put the card into an envelope and drew a big heart on the cover.
On the morning of her birthday, I saw her mom secretly wiping her tears in the kitchen, clutching the card in her hand. She later told me that what her daughter had written in the card was: “Mom, I know that your most precious things are not very expensive things. Just like your favorite lipstick is the one that fell into the crack of the sofa, your favorite cup is the handmade ceramic cup I made in kindergarten, and your most treasured necklace is the one I strung with colorful beads. Today I want to tell you that you are also my most precious mom, not because you are the perfect mom, but because you are my mom.”
It turns out that the sweetest blessings are not in the florid words, but in the fragments of memories that have been polished and shined by time. What people treasure is never the perfect gift, but the heart of “I remember” behind the gift.
In the roughness of life and the urgency of the years, only these subtle memories, like sugar and honey, bond those daily routines that are about to be broken.
