A story of my mom

A story of my mom

Wisaphorn Inatarchueajan

The story that I am going to share is not my own story, it happened to my mom and I have been told when I was a little by my grandma. She seemed to be so proud of my mom every time she told me the story. Mom has always been my idol and inspired me to be a tough person.


It started in a little hut made from coconut leaves and wood. It's where grandma and grandpa lived when they decided to spend their whole life together as a couple. The hut located in a middle of nowhere in the rural country side of Thailand. They grew rice and vegetablesfor a living.
They were very poor and didn't even have enough money to buy food and stuff so they ate the vegetables or potatoes or whatever they could find around the area. They would trade the high quality rice they grew in for more rice of lesser quality so that they could have food throughout the year.

One day, Grandma found out that she was pregnant. There wasn't any hospital or clinic around that poor country side. Grandma pretty much took care of herself until she gave birth to my mom. An old lady in the village who was the midwife helped give birth to my mom. Mom was a healthy baby and adorable. Grandma named her "Nuy" 
it means pretty eyes in Thai, because mom had the most striking eyes grandma had ever seen.

Mom was a very sweet girl. Grandma never had any problems raising her. When she turned five, grandma taught her how to cook rice and it has become her duty to cook rice every day.
Everyday grandpa would go take care of buffalos and cows, grandma would grow rice and my little mom would go help. Grandma never heard the word "tired" come out of my mom or cry like a baby for normal five year old girls nowadays.

As time went by, grandma gave birth to twin babies when mom turned six. Mom had to take care of her two little sisters as well as the duties she had to do every day, and again she never complained, because she loved grandma and grandpa so much. She wanted to help as much as she could so her parents wouldn't be so tired all the time. Men in Thailand in the old days would not care much about the kids or housework. They would only do outdoor works. So there were mom and grandma to raise the kids. Since then grandma had been getting pregnant and giving birth to a baby girl every year…until the seventh girl. Mom and her sisters grew up together and they were so close. All the girls didn't get to play or run around a whole lot like other children. They had to do chores and help grandma grow rice and vegetables. They never had any money to buy candy or toys. Fruits from trees around the house were the only candy they could find. Sometimes there was no rice at all, they would go dig potatoes in the woods or look for crabs in the fishing holes or helped grandpa fish.


My mom was like a second mother for all of my aunts because grandma was getting old and she wasn't very healthy. When anybody in the family got sick, they were pretty much helping take care of each other and there was no medicine at all. Hospital was very far away. However life was not that unfair, my mother and my aunts they were able to go to school, even if they did not have any uniforms to wear like other children. Then my mom got a second hand uniform from some neighbors. When it was time for her little sisters to go to school, grandmother didn't have enough money for all of the other siblings. She decided to go talk to the teacher and took mom out of her fourth grade class to help work and earn money for the family.

Mom was so sad but she didn't get angry at grandma at all for doing that. She understood and handled it well. Grandma taught her how to cook and she became the cook of the house and even started carrying food around to sell when she was ten. Everyday she would go sell food at school and watched other kids study or playing on the school grounds. Mom never got mad at her tough life, she loved grandma and grandpa so much she would do anything for them.When she turned fourteen, mom decided to go to Bangkok; which is the name of the capital city of Thailand. She started working as a waitress in a small restaurant. She was pushed and made fun of because she was just a poor country girl. However, she never gave up. She was so patient and saved up all her money and sent it home. All she thought about was wanting to make her parents happy and have food on their table. She was a very beautiful woman inside and out so there were some other waitresses who did not like her and told lies to the manager until she got fired. Mom wasso sad, but she started looking for a new job immediately. It was so hard to find a job, especially with no education. One day she met an old friend walking down the street. They talked for a long time and her friend asked if she wanted to come work with her. Mom knew that the job was to be a prostitute. Mom didn’t like that at all, but her friend said a young pretty girl like mom would definitely make a lot of money; it made her think about her family back home. She told her friend that she would think about it. She couldn’t sleep all night because she was thinking about how to make everybody's life better.

She finally remembered what grandma used to tell her “What goes around comes around, if you do good things you will get good things back”. Mom realized she was really looking down on herself if she was thinking about being a prostitute. She got up and talked to herself “I am going to get a job today or I will go home”. That day, she walked around without even having any money to buy a piece of bread because she had already sent it all to the family.She thought to herself maybe she’s not meant to be here, she would just go home. But, as soon as she looked up, she saw a paper on a building saying that they were looking for hard workers to work in a jewelries factory. She ran in right away and she got the job!

She got a job as a maid, but she was really interested in those people cutting gemstone and shaping beautiful gems. Everyday she would look at them and tried to remember how they did it while she was cleaning the floors. One day she decided to walk to the main office and talk to the manager, she told him that she would love to learn to do that type of work. He didn’t like that because she was only eighteen and it was men’s job, but he gave her a try because he had a crush on my mom. He taught her how to cut gems and shape them. He was shocked to find out that she was very good at cutting gems. Mom practiced everyday with her manager and she knew that she was in love with him. Days went by until roughly a year had passed, he then asked her to marry him and mom was very happy. They worked there together and saved up some money to start their own business making jewelries. They had to start from ground zero. Mom helped him as much as she could, even though she could not read.

The business grew quickly because they were hard-working and honest. She believed in what goes around comes around. All her positive thoughts and actions were coming back to her. From a poor country girl who never had everything like other children, she now had whatever she wanted. My mom grew up not have an education, but she has still been able to send me to America to study. When other educated people can’t send their own children abroad to be schooled. I have never been embarrassed by my mother, but I feel so lucky to be her daughter and she is my hero. Whatever I do I would always think about her and hopefully get successful like her