My Parents

I was reading a blog and I really liked it.  There was a gentleman about the age of 49 years old.  He writes well and his style of writing sounds like a story all the time.  He doesn't ramble like I do or make everything sound or seem boring, his flow of words just catches a lot peoples' attention.  He had several posts that made me think about my parents:

1. He likes to reflect on his life and write it on his blog to share it with the world, whether someone reads it or not.  I wish my parents were able to do that, but they don't read or write in English much.  Do it in Hmong you may ask?  Well, not all Hmong know how to read and write in Romanized Popular Alphabet (Hmong writing).  So even if my parents wanted to write a blog, they wouldn't be able to. All of their stories that no one knows about would be lost forever.  All of these great stories of hardships and all of their joyous times from their first step in the US to swimming in the Mekong River.  These stories will never be told and I am so sad that they can't express themselves in a way that best suits them.  I sure can ask about it, but what if they don't want to tell me or what if it just takes too much time to tell me.  I want them to express it in a way that they want to do it, it's willingly done, like a blog post.

2.  He spoke of his feelings.  Something that my parents rarely do.  I may be generalizing, but a lot of Hmong don't speak of their feelings, don't show their feelings, and don't express it at all.  My dad is one of them, he rarely will show is feelings.  When he does, we all are very grateful.  He has opened up more now than ever, but if we don't ask he will never tell.  I want him to be able to express his feelings on paper, or in some kind of documentation.

3. He speaks of what he thinks about himself.  A person likes to reflect on themself and I would love to read or listen to what my parents think about themself.  Whether they think that they did all that they could or that they could do better.  Reflection helps build a person.

4.  He speaks of what he is worried about and how his day went.  I would like to know, hear, read what my parents are worried about without intruding by asking questions all the time.  What is my mom worried about today and what is her daily routine?  I live with my parents, but we don't always talk.  I get home from work and am too tired to socialize with them or to listen to them tell me what I need to do around the house.  When I am at ease, I would like to read/listen to what is going on in their lives and that's about the time that they are too busy.

I really need to find a way to have my parents express themselves.  I think I'm going to have them record themselves on my laptop and have them share their stories, anything they want to talk about.  Have them sit in a room all by themselves so that we aren't influencing what they say or how they feel.  I will start this project this week!

It should be simple enough.  I will set up the laptop and tell them to speak about their lives, anything in the world they want to talk about for about half an hour.  I'll leave them in the room by themselves to share.  After about half an hour, I'll come back and then stop the camera, unless they're not done yet.  I'll do this for about a month, put this into a video and send it to my siblings! 

Thanks blog!