She was, I wasn't

As my writing takes on different paths, I realized recently that there is a path that I will have difficulty going down if and when the time should come for me to take that journey. I really don't know much about my mother aside from her professional life and the interactions I saw myself. I don't know much about my mother when she was a child, a teenager or adult. I don't know what it was like when her brothers and sisters would stay with her and my father when they came to the United States to study. I don't know how she and my father met or what their courtship was like. I don't know what my parent's life was like before they had children. There are so many things that I don't know that I want so much to know. I know that I would like to know all these things and more - what were the relationships like between my mother and her siblings. How did she feel when she had children. Did my mother ever get into trouble as a child, teenager or adult? So many unanswered questions. These are the things I feel I lost out on given the fact that I no longer have my mother to turn to so I may ask these questions. Somewhere within me lies the curiousity and the want to reach out to my mother's remaining siblings to ask these questions and more. Is it too intrusive or would they welcome the opportunity to share these stories that I don't know about my mother? There are so many things I want to ask my father . . . but he is unable to utter one or two words about my mother without breaking down into tears. Would he welcome the opportunity to share with his daughter how he and my mother met? How they fell in love? How they felt when they had children? 

I want to know who she was so I may learn more about who I am and draw my own conclusions about how similar and different we are. Or maybe how as mother and daughter we complemented each other. Or not, for that matter. I know that I am my mother's daughter in so many ways. But those are characteristics or traits that we share. Do we share any similar stories, though? I want to come to a place where I understand her better. 

One part of her story that I do know . . . I am not the only daughter of Chinese parents who knew all too well that there was one child who was the apple of one or both parents' eyes. According to my aunt, my mother was always number one in my grandmother's eyes. Not one of my mother's four brothers and sisters could outdo my mother or take her place. My aunt explained that they all knew that, so no one ever tried to take her place or change that fact. And, oddly, my aunt didn't seem the least bit upset. She conveyed the story from a place of acceptance and calm. I remember for years it was so obvious that between my older brother and I . . .  he was the golden child. In my parents' eyes, my brother could do no wrong. He was the oldest. He was the male. And seriously, he could do no wrong. It was he who always had the "right" friends, good grades, etc. Me? I couldn't have been more inopposite of my brother, and that's not by accident. Though, I think even as babies and small children, we couldn't have been more opposite. To this day . . . as far as I can see or hear, in my presence, my father generally speaks of my brother as if worshipping him from afar. Not in my presence, though, things are not as they appear . . . but that's for another day. 

My mother was number one . . . her siblings would never be number one. I was never number one . . . my brother was always the apple of my parents' eyes. I think that is one of many factors that contributes to the dynamic of the relationship between my mother and I. Clearly, we don't share that story . . . rather we complemented each other. We balance that part of our independent stories. How awesome is that?