Gratitude - Things You Must Do to Respect and Care for Your Parents

Author: Murong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features: The alarm clock of a mother In the village primary school, there was a custom: fifth and sixth-grade students attended night school in winter and early school in summer. When Xiaomin entered the fifth grade, she also started early school and made a deal with her neighbor Xiaobo to walk together every morning.
When Xiaomin opened the door, Xiaobo was already waiting there.
"Did you wait long?" Xiaomin asked, feeling a little embarrassed.
"Not long." She said so, but Xiaomin saw the expression of "finally out" on her face.
"Why didn’t you wake me up earlier?"
"My house doesn’t have a clock, so I don’t know the time. I was afraid it would be too early to wake you. My mom wakes me up when she thinks it’s almost dawn. She says she wakes up even earlier than a rooster."
"From now on, I’ll wake you up ten minutes early so you can wash your face and pack your school bag."
While saying this, Xiaomin thought of her own mother.
Although there was a clock at home, it wasn’t an alarm clock. Her mother didn’t wake her up by looking at the clock; instead, she checked the time several times before calling her. To make sure she could sleep as long as possible without being late, her mother must have woken up even earlier than a rooster.
That year, Xiaomin used her New Year’s money to buy an alarm clock for her mother. But she rarely heard the alarm clock ring. Her mother said she always forgot to change the batteries. Yet, from primary school to high school graduation, she was never late for school, nor did she ever go to school on an empty stomach.
In college, the unanimous decision made by her dormmates was: buy an alarm clock. A child who was used to being woken up by their mother every morning probably couldn’t live without an alarm clock.
But the next day, they regretted it—the sound of the alarm clock was simply too loud.
So during those days when they were used to the alarm clock, they missed their mother’s voice every day.
Once, she asked her mother, "You don’t forget anything else, but why do you always forget to change the batteries for the alarm clock?"
Her mother laughed, "Silly girl, Mom wanted you to sleep longer. When it rings, the whole family wakes up."
Her heart was struck as if by something: "You wake up so early every day and are never late—how do you do it? Even the alarm clock can’t wake us up."
"Mom also has an alarm clock, right here." Her mother said, pointing to her own chest.
In an instant, she realized: Mom’s alarm clock was love.
The most beautiful sound in the world is the call of a mother. In every morning and in the evening when the kitchen smoke curls up, in the deepest part of the heart.
Mothers have been our alarm clocks, our lights, and our umbrellas in our lives. So, in Mom’s life, besides her children, what else have we been to her?
P10-11