那天他上班后，我在家摇了半天的头，实在实在无法相信我全军覆没！这让我记起《爱的五种语言》 （Five Languages of Love, by Dr.Gary Chapman，作者是美国知名的婚恋专家，也是牧师） 里面说男人和女人有着不同的爱的语言，让对方感受到爱的关键点也是千差万别。我们不能按照自己的想象，认为自己怎样会觉得被爱，对方必定也是同样。我想，爱就像个皮球，抛出去，要对方接到才行，所以要找好对方所在的位置扔过去，不然人家接不到，感受不到，再大力也是白费劲。再回忆一下我那个悲催的纪念日，你一定会理解我的意思。当然我的先生还是可以感受到我对他的爱，但，肯定不像我受到同种待遇时会出现的状况：当场涕泗横流，以及接下来的几日还会继续浸泡在爱的蜜缸里，难以自拔。
Houston
almost never has a winter, but this year even Houston has had several episodes
of sub-freezing weather. One very cold morning, my husband’s cell phone
suddenly started ringing, and my heart skipped a beat. Sure enough, there was a
problem. The call was from West Virginia, where his parents live. His father
said, “Your mother has had a heart attack, and right now she’s in an ambulance
headed for the hospital.” Oh oh oh oh heavens! My husband immediately began
muttering, “Oh, oh, oh Lord, please don’t take her so soon; we aren’t ready
yet.”
It’s very
difficult when your parents live that far away. My husband had been sick with a
fever just the night before, and I had been wondering whether he should call in
sick that day. But after he hung up the phone, he booked a plane ticket and
flew straight to West Virginia that very morning. He rented a car at the
Pittsburgh airport and drove to the hospital where Grandmother was near
Clarksburg, despite the fact that Pennsylvania and West Virginia were in the middle
of a snowstorm. Grandmother stayed in the ICU for three days, sedated and
unconscious. My husband stayed there for a week, serving them with all his
heart and energy. All that time there were serious snowstorms in the North, and
the temperature stayed near and below zero. My husband is always able to find
the silver lining in the clouds, and it was no different this time. He sent me
a picture of himself and told me that after I saw the picture I would not worry
about him being frozen anymore — we could only see his eyes and his nostrils in
the picture, like a soldier armed to the teeth. The kids were asking, “Where is
that terrorist from?”
Although the
kids and I do not like how it feels when the head of our household is not home,
still, taking care of grandparents always comes first. So the kids were
cooperative and good. Until he came back, we did not give any thought to that;
it was just what we all had to do. Grandmother had gotten a small cold, but
from that the heart got infected, and then her lungs got full of fluid, and
finally her heart failed. Grandmother has always been very healthy, always
walking around like a young person; a month earlier they had driven thousands
of miles to Houston from West Virginia for Christmas, but this time she had been
to the very door of death before coming back to us. Two weeks later, we started
hearing good news every day. The heart, which had been on the edge, stabilized.
We kept thanking God that the couple will have more time to respect each other
and love each other, more time to be admired by others, a chance to celebrate
their fiftieth wedding anniversary with their children!
As
Grandmother was getting better, and this unexpected episode in our lives drew
to a close, we went back to our normal, busy way of life. However, something
happened after Grandmother recovered that gave me a lot to think about! One day
my husband and I got thank-you e-mails from Grandmother, while she still was
not totally recovered. She expressed her thanks to my husband and to me and to
the kids, briefly but with genuine feeling. There were a few typographical
errors — obviously she was still very weak while she was typing. My first
reaction was surprise; isn’t it just natural and unremarkable when children are
good to their parents? In China, parents accept ten thousand trials to raise
their children, but few children thank their parents. Then when the parents get
sick, it’s understandable that when their children are good to them, they feel
relieved. But writing a thank-you e-mail — is it necessary??? I didn’t know how
to answer Grandmother’s e-mail. I tried to get my husband to reply, but he was
busy, busy, busy.
Then about
one week later, Grandmother wrote another long e-mail. She said she was sorry
that she could not stand the hot weather in Houston, and that therefore they
had to give their children so much trouble by living so far away. She said
thank you to my husband for racing there the moment he heard about the problem.
Although she didn’t know for three days what my husband was doing while she was
unconscious, Grandpa kept saying it was a really good thing that he was there.
She said thank you to me because I took the responsibility of caring for a big
family to make it possible for my husband to fly there and take care of her,
and she said thank you to the children for cooperating and for praying for
them. And she also said thank you to my husband for buying plane tickets for
his sister so that she could fly to West Virginia and take care of Grandmother
after she came home from the hospital and my husband went home…it was very
detailed and sincere, she mentioned every single person one by one. I have to
admit, although I don’t think what we did was worth such a heartfelt outpouring
of thanks, still I was very touched by the gratitude from the bottom of her
heart.
Chinese
always value being reserved. For family members to express gratitude to each
other seems too polite, it seems like pushing people away, denying intimacy,
treating people as if they were acquaintances and not family members, and some
people even call it hypocrisy. Ah, so is it that Americans do not have close
relationships between family members — is that why they spend so much time
saying thank you?? Well, I don’t know about
other American families, but the relationship between my husband and his
parents is very close and they respect each other very much. My husband calls
his parents almost every day. Sometimes he shares one funny joke or piece of
news with them; sometimes they watch a game together over the phone and laugh
at a mistake made by one player; sometimes he discusses a verse in the Bible
with them; sometimes he just tells them the trouble we have in our life and
asks for prayers. It’s not like a phone call between women — their conversation
is always short, yet at the same time full of affection. Not like me…most of
the time I just tell my parents good news, because I worry that bad news would
give them too much of an extra burden. But my husband shares bad news too, as
he knows that they would pray and hand that burden over to God. I envy their
relationship. How much I hope that in the future my son could share all his
happiness and sorrow with me! He would not worry about giving me any burden, he
could throw all those negative feelings to me, whether fear, depression,
failure or any other emotion. And I could be calm; no panic, no blame, no
nagging…..
Well,
anyway, that thank-you letter absolutely was not written because the family
relationship is weakened and distant, but simply because it is the habit for
people in their family to share with others the gratitude their hearts feel,
whether the others are strangers or their nearest relatives. For the first time
I really understand that even though I didn’t at all expect gratitude, still I
shouldn’t, just because she expressed thanks, start feeling that she doesn’t
think of us as family members. On the contrary, in my heart I went from
astonishment to warmth, to feeling that I was being honored and understood and
cherished and appreciated and cared for…whatever it was that was bubbling in my
heart, it was beautiful and good and positive.
I remember
before their granddaughter’s wedding, when they were helping set up the wedding
hall. Whenever they were separated from each other for a little while in the
middle of all that hustle and bustle, they would be keeping an eye on each
other, and whenever they had a chance they would give each other a little help.
And then they would say, “Thank you,” and then add “I love you.” Watching these
dear grey-haired old people behaving like youngsters who had just fallen
head-over-heels in love, thinking how it really is possible for romance to last
all the way into old age, I stood aside smiling delightedly to myself,
practically intoxicated with joy.
Maybe it’s
just in our Chinese character that we find it hard to express our feelings. If
a stranger helps us, we will feel gratitude and we will naturally say thank
you, right? But sometimes when our family members take care of us in every
imaginable way, we take it for granted and are perfectly comfortable not saying
thank you. Sometimes we even have a very different attitude toward our family
than toward our friends and colleagues. We are careless with our wording, we
hurl complaints, accusations, contempt, even rage…and we excuse ourselves, we
tell ourselves, precisely because they are family, “No need for disguise, let
the real self flow freely, just relax and be myself…”
Don’t you
know, the true self, before it undergoes the fire of transformation, is always
selfish? We can thank a stranger with a hug to warm his heart; but we can also
use the “true self” to hurt those closest to us day after day. Those people
whom God put nearest to us are the most important, the ones we ought most to
cherish, the ones we ought most to appreciate, the ones we ought most to thank
— because they walk through life at our side, through frost and snow and rain,
never far from us, never abandoning us. Even if they have hurt us before, it’s
just because they have not learned how to express love. Let’s learn to forgive,
to make changes starting with ourselves — more smiles, more thank-yous, more
hugs, more acts and words of love.
The Bible
says, “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the
bones.” Gracious words have more power than we can imagine. Dear one, right
now, can you try to let true gratitude take root in your heart? Can you display
a sincere smile and let a family member hear your gratitude? It doesn’t matter
who they are. If you can’t say it, then write it on a piece of paper or a small
card or whatever. You will definitely make someone’s day brighter!
