On Tradition. And Mother-Daughter Relationships.

While other kids were staking out stores and malls during Black Friday with their families, my mother would sit my sister and me down to wrap our small bodies with the traditional Hmong clothes she had spent the entire year preparing. She told us the same story, year after year, to garner guilt but also to tell us how fortunate we were to have in our possession, our own outfits. I also think she shared it to tell us how important it would be to us once we became women and no longer had her in our lives.

My mother died when I was a baby so I never knew her. But I still miss her everyday. My father remarried soon after and had a new family. The second wife was good to me but she never loved me like her own. Every New Year I would watch other girls, who had mothers, dress up and partake in traditional courting. It made me so sad because I wanted nice clothes too. But more importantly, I wanted a mother who would stand behind me and fix my skirt and blouse, or my xauv and my headdress. I didn't have a mother to prepare anything for me.

Then she'd take her knuckles and smack me on the head because I always started whining and crying, halfway through her story, about how I was tired or how she was wrapping the skirt and sashes too tightly. I remember crying so hard one time that I couldn't breathe anymore because she had squeezed me into my dress so tightly. Those knuckle-smacks weren't a joke. I was such a brat.

I Facetimed my mom the other night and she told me that if our xauv were ever misplaced, lost, or stolen, she would just give up life and cry. I swear to baby jesus those were her exact words.

My mother's the furthest thing from being materialistic. She's always told me, "Once I'm gone, I want you to have more than the memories of the few years I had with you." She has worked her entire life to be able to provide for her children, specifically her daughters so we would have a piece of her hard work once we started our own families or once she was no longer around. It's not just any piece of gold or silver; it's an heirloom.

And I think ultimately, she doesn't want us to feel the way she felt as a mother-less child.

Then I thought of all the times she was able to dress us in our Hmong garb. It's probably been less than 20 times. It wasn't until I left home that I realized the importance of my roots and how it was important to my parents, especially my mother. This made me really sad and I may or may not have ugly-girl cried in my room.

A few years ago, before a trip home for Thanksgiving, I asked her to prepare an outfit for me. She asked me which one I wanted to wear and if I wanted to dress up for all the days of the New Year. She sounded so excited. And quite honestly, I think that Thanksgiving weekend was probably one of the best memories I'll ever have with my mother.

I used to hope that I'd never grow up to be like my mother but as I'm getting older, she's the kind of woman and mother I hope to become. Except my children are probably going to be ten times as obnoxious as me. Lawwd, teach me patience.


A traditional xauv. It looks heavier than you think it does. I remember getting bruises on the back of my neck from wearing mine.
source: prettygeeky.com