When I was eight years old, I had a dream to become a vet, but then when I got older and older, and gradually I changed my mind, and I wished I could be more like my mother. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “A woman is like a tea bag, you will never know how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”
My mother is like a tea bag. When things get tough she can be very strong. I learned a lot from her, and now today I am still learning from her. Success for her means she can help her children live in the right way and have an education.
My parents got divorced when I was 6 years old. My mom took care of me and my younger brother. Here in Canada it is different from our country. We don’t have child support, so she would work very hard to provide our needs; she loved to cook and make some cakes and sell them. She woke up very early every morning and she worked everyday, but in the evenings she always had time to talk to us. She could not read and write in Bahasa ( Bahasa is an Indonesia language). However, my mother was able to memorize all the recipes so easily. Finally, my mother owned her own store, but one day a stranger came and took the gas tank that she used for cooking, (in my country gas tank is expensive) so my mother had to close the store for three months.
I asked my mom, “What will you do now without a gas tank?” she said, “Don’t worry. We can have some vacation time now, and then maybe you will find a husband so mama will not need to open the store anymore”. (At that time I was only 8 years old). I just cried and cried because I didn’t want to get married. Finally she said, “Don’t worry I am just kidding”. After a while she opened her store again and everything went well.
Now I realized, even though she wasn’t working in an office like others, she was still a very successful woman. She always said,”Tomorrow will be a better day, and don’t give up as long you are still breathing”. Success in my life is not just material things that we have, but we should have a balance of emotional needs as well.
Written by: Shinta