When I was an elementary student, I was led by my aunt to a big hospital. When I went there without knowing the reason, I saw someone I was familiar with in a patient gown. It was my mom. She was happy to see me but soon, she screamed.
“Ouch! It hurts.”
When the doctor poured antiseptic on her hand wrapped in bandages, she said it hurt but she smiled at me as soon as she saw me. Since she smiled, I didn’t take it seriously though I saw her fingertips stained with blood.
Mom left the hospital in one month. I received a call to meet her before going home, and waited for her with excitement.
She came a while later. She opened her two arms to hug me whom she met after a long time. However, I was scared of her hand which was different from before. I shook off her hand and made a remark that I still regret saying it.
“Your hand is weird! It’s scary! I won’t come to you.”
“Oh, what’s wrong? It’s not scary. It’s okay.”
I ended up not embracing my mom who was trying to comfort me. When I grew up, I came to know why she was injured at that time. After my father died unexpectedly, Mom had to work in a factory without having time to pull herself together, and had half of her two fingers cut by a machine while working. She smiled at me though she was seriously injured, worrying that I might be shocked.
One time, I asked her, “What did you think when you hurt your fingers?” and I choked up to hear her answer.
“I was so shocked that I couldn’t feel pain. When I tried to move my fingers in the ambulance, they moved. I was relieved because I would be able to keep working.”
In such an urgent situation, she was worried that she might not be able to work and that it would be difficult to raise her children. Though she didn’t show it, she must have been hurt so much when her daughter avoided her hand, saying it was weird. Even at this moment that I am writing, I feel sorry to her that tears well up in my eyes.
When I was young, I was scared and was even ashamed of her short fingers, but no longer am I. To me, my mom’s fingers are the most beautiful fingers in the world.