A rose for your Pocket Part 2

In the West, we celebrate Mother's Day in May. I am from the country side of Vietnam, and I had never heard of this tradition. One day, I was visiting the Ginze district of Tokya with Monk An, and we were met outside a bookstore by several Japanese student who wre friends of his. One discretely asked him a question, and then took a white carnation for her bag and pinned it on my robe. I was surprised and a little embarrassed. I had no idea what this gesture meant, and I didn't dare ask. I tried to act natural, thinking this must be some local custom.

When they were finished talking (I don't speak Japanese), Thien An and i went into the bookstore, and he told me that today was what is called Mother's Day. In Japan, if your mother is still alive, you wear a red flower on your pocket or your lapel, proud to still have your mother. If she is no longer alive, you wear a white flower. I looked at the white flower on my robe and suddenly, I felt so unhappy. I was as much an orphanas any other unhappy orphan ; we orphans could no longer proudly wear red flowers in our buttonholes. Those who wear whoe flowers suffer, and their thoughts cannot avoid returning to their mothers.

They cannot forget she is no longer there. Those who wear red flowers are so happy, knowing that their mothers are still alive. They can try to please her before she is gone and it is too late. I find this a beautiful custom. I propose what we do the same thinng in Vietnam and in the West as well.


Mother is a boundless source of love, an inexhaustible treasure. But unfortunately, we sometimes forget. A mother is the most beautiful gift life offer us. Those of you who still have your mother near, please dont wait for her death to say , "Oh God, I have lived beside my mother all these years without ever looking at her closely. Just brief glances, a few words exchanged - asking for a little pocket money or one thing or another." You cuddle up to her to get warm, you sulk, you get angry with her. You only complicate her life causing her to worry, undermining her health, making her go to sleep late and get up early. Many mothers die young because of their children. Throughtout her life we expect her to cook, wash and clean up after us, while we think only about our grades and careeres.

Our mother no longer have time to look deeply at us, and we are too busy to look closely at her. Only when she is no longer there do we realize that we have never been cansious of having a mother.

This evening, when you return from school or work or, if you live far away, the next tme you visit your mother, you may wish to go into her room and, with a clam and silent smile, sit down beside her. Without saying anything, make her stop working. Then, look at her for a long time, to realize that she is there, she is alive, beside you. Take her hand and ask her one short question to capture her attetion, " Mother, do you know something?" She will be a little surprised and will probab;y smile when she ask you "What dear?"

Keep looking into her eyes, smiling serenely, and say "Do you know that I love you?" Ask this question without waiting for an answer. Even you are thrty or forty years old, or even older, ask her as the child of your mother. Your mother and you will be happy, cansious of living in eternal love. Then, tomorrow, when she leaves you, you will have no regrets.