Mother's Day2023 Esssay⑥

Life Is Hard and Simple 

Author： Kao

“Ah… I want to die.”

Those words slip out the moment I open my mouth. And when I close it, tears come instead.

I want to die. I can’t do this anymore. I wish I could just disappear.

The words that rise in my head—words I can’t erase no matter how hard I try—I accept them, then deny them. I hold them close, then push them away.

While I’m doing that, the clock hands keep moving. It’s almost 8:15.

Time for school.

This is a short essay I happened to find among a pile of crumpled worksheets and handouts from my sixth-grade daughter.

Yes—my daughter doesn’t go to school.

I’ve found the words “I want to die” written over and over in her communication notebook and on printed worksheets. And every morning she asks me,

“Why do I have to go to school?”

And then people—teachers, and others around us—ask me,

“Why doesn’t she want to go to school?”

Is it because I’m a single mother? Because she transferred schools? Because I was too busy and couldn’t give her enough love?

I’ve thought about it too much. I don’t even know anymore what I did wrong.

Something similar happened when she was about to start elementary school.

She had daytime bedwetting, but we couldn’t find the cause. I talked to so many places , a mother-and-child support center, a urology clinic, the elementary school, a child psychiatrist, the child guidance center—but nothing improved.

Then one support worker said to me, “Maybe this is happening because you’re not properly facing your daughter—maybe you’re relying too much on outside consultations.”

Hearing that, I thought: Maybe I’ve made my daughter endure too much. Maybe I’ve put a heavy burden on this small back of hers.

I blamed myself, and I apologized to her.

But things didn’t get better.

I sank deeper and deeper, and I became unstable too—sometimes feeling like I wasn’t really here, like I was floating away from myself.

And then, one day, a teacher at the after-school program told me,“You’re not at fault.”

In a glass-walled club room at the school, I burst into tears.

Later, a school counselor said to me, “Just standing up and getting through each day must have been incredibly hard for you. And it’s not a bad thing if your daughter wants to help her mother. But let’s stop apologizing.”

When I lifted my face, I saw a high blue sky through the window.

After that, my daughter’s symptoms gradually began to improve.

When I was blamed, I got sick. When I was encouraged, I was saved.

And now—this time—I want to save myself.

I feel that strongly.

There may be countless possible reasons why my daughter doesn’t want to go to school. But in the end, I don’t know. And is “managing school life well” really everything?

No.

I thought and thought and thought—until everything in my head got tangled. And then I stopped trying to force a neat answer.

I decided this:

My daughter and I will do what feels enjoyable—what we truly want to do right now.

I hold my daughter close. And I hold myself close, too.

This April, she entered middle school.

Before school, there is not a single day when I don’t hear words like: “Why do I have to go? “I’m tired. “I want to die.”

But for her goal this year, she wrote: “Find myself.”

Her face, covered in tears and sweat and dust, somehow looks like it’s still facing forward.

Maybe all we need to do is this: keep building up small moments of “what feels fun, right now.”

Just that feels like enough.

Living is hard. But it’s also simple.

If we keep stacking up small pieces of “fun,” life can be okay.

That’s what I believe now.

Call for Donations
Thank you for reading this essay to the end. This essay was written by a single mother Kao. Single Mothers Sisterhood supports the mental and physical health and empowerment of single mothers. Your generous donations will be carefully used to fund the operation of 'Self-Care Workshops for Single Mothers'. Donations are accepted on our donation page here.

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