Vomit

When my father went overseas to work for a year, it was an emotional struggle for my mother. I can understand it now, because I was in a long distance marriage myself as I finished school on one coast while my husband worked on the other. Even though my mother has friends and family close by, it just wasn’t the same. I don’t condone what she did even if out of ignorance – but I have learned compassion for her situation and her mental state of mind.

When I was five or six years old, I became rather sick with a fever. My mother took me to a clinic and the doctor prescribed some pills for me. I’d always gone to the apothecaries and the herbal powders, even though bitter, weren’t too bad to swallow. Western medicines were saccharine syrups in strange lime-green and black colors, and the pills were huge and intimidating.

That evening it was time for my medicine, and I was in my parents’ bedroom. There were five pills I had to take, one was particularly large – the size of a multi-vitamin pill or a big furry caterpillar. I had usually been rather good at taking medicine because I was taught to be an obedient child. However, that night I felt tired and feverish and uncooperative. I was also crying. I wanted to take the pills one by one. But my mother wouldn’t hear of it – I was to take all five pills at once. I looked at the pills in my palm, horrified and intimidated. I was afraid one of them would stick in my throat and I’d choke to death.

I didn’t argue. Crying, I popped the pills into my mouth and drank some water to push them down. I threw up – my mother had already prepared a tin basin just in case, and sure enough the contents flew into the basin. She was angry that I had wasted the pills. She counted out fresh pills and handed them to me.

She said, “If you don’t swallow these, I don’t want you anymore and I’m going to leave you.”

My life was dependent on swallowing these pills. I’d surely die. I was numb with horror and fever.

Another valiant attempt, but I couldn’t hold it down. Once again the pills came flying out of my mouth and into the basin. My mother took off, like she said she would. I – a normally quiet and docile child – began screaming after her.

“Mommy! Come back! Mommy!”

I grew more shocked as I heard the door slam, and I knew that my mother had left me. I was an evil child because my mother would not want me anymore. My uncle’s wife rushed into the bedroom when she heard me screaming and sent her brother out to chase my mother down. She comforted me and told me that my mom will come back.

My mother did come back, and I remembered her hard expression. I’m still scared of throwing up to this day.