There are moments in a relationship that are more impervious to obstacles and include……when you fall in love…when you get married….your honeymoon …….. and the birth of a child.
Once my sister and I entered the world, the cracks of my parents’ marriage began to surface. Their social circles were different and only my father was willing to cross that line. He would go out of his way to ingratiate himself with my mother’s friends. He had this jovial demeanor and loved cooking for them.
My mother’s friends have told me what a loving and kind man he was. Always trying to please everyone and keep them happy.
My mother was not that way. She would keep to herself and didn’t reciprocate like my father. The language, class structure and other cultural divides were too far apart to overcome.
My mother relished the time my auntie would visit from Hong Kong . She would lavish my mother with stories of her travels and life in the city with taxis, her own chauffeur and maid. My auntie would also pay for my mother to visit Hong Kong, Korea and New York City. These excursions reminded my mother of the life she maybe wanted but didn’t have.
It should be remembered that my mother went from this vibrant young emerging artist in Seoul to all of a sudden being a housewife and mother of two children in a new country.
The pull to have some of her old life was too great. She soon started getting back into her art and began painting again. She took classes at Virginia Wesleyan University and eventually produced enough art work to sell.
She sold some of her artwork at the Boardwalk Art Festival in Virginia Beach. I can remember helping her set up her booth. Just blocks and blocks of artists as far as the eye could see.
My father supported my mother’s passion and worked hard to support her education and artistic endeavors. Deep down, I think he wanted what was best for her.
But this support came at a cost. As an enlisted cook in the Navy, his salary was paltry and not enough alone to support these new expenses. That realization hit pretty hard and he took other jobs.
One of these jobs included working at McDonald’s. He would dutifully put on his double arches uniform and head to work after already putting in a full day in the Navy. He would bring home these McDonald’s employee hats. They were rectangular and made out of folded paper. You could slide the hat in and out to fit your head. I remember running around the house with those hats as if we were working at McDonald’s too.
My mother’s artistic awakening could not be contained within the life that she knew. She knew that and it wouldn’t be long before that crack continued to grow.
Childhood lost 