Maternal Ears Can Always Hear

By Ma Yawei

One time when I was visiting my hometown, my younger sister and I were chatting in the front room while we trimmed vegetables for cooking.

She said, “Look how careless you are. You cannot even pick the edible part of the vegetables.”

I replied with a smile, “My eyesight has been failing recently, partly because I’m always on the computer.”

At that moment our mother, who was busy in the other room, cried out, “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

My sister chuckled and whispered, “Mom has such a keen ear that she overheard us talking from in there.” And then she spoke loudly, “My elder sister is nearsighted. How could she maintain good eyesight while working on the computer every day?”

Mother rushed out of the room, looked into my eyes and said, “You’ve got a good pair of eyes. Why are you nearsighted now? You’d better spend less time on the computer.”

A few weeks later, I went back to my mother’s home. She fetched two bags of Chinese wolfberries from the cupboard and told me: “I asked Doctor Zhang in the village. She advised to drink Chinese wolfberry water when your eyes are impaired.”

Mother did this more than once or twice. Three years ago, she moved in with me for a short time. One evening a colleague of mine came to chat with me. We were talking in the living room while my mother watched TV in the bedroom. I said: “Last winter I caught a cold and kept coughing for a couple of months. I always felt that the thermal underwear and down jacket I wore were not as warm as the home-made cotton-padded clothes I wore in my childhood. The cotton-padded clothes are more comfortable to wear, but they just look a bit too bulky.”

My colleague echoed: “This year, a new kind of hand-made cotton-padded jacket is getting popular, with a thermal top as the lining and the cotton print as the fabric. They don’t look bulky at all!”

Within a few days, Mother bought cloth and made a cottonpadded jacket for me, which brought me a cozy winter.

I recalled my younger sister’s words that Mother would like to “overhear” us. In fact, it is not overhearing—it is the mother’s natural sensitivity to the voices of their daughters and sons. No matter how noisy her surroundings are, she can always hear them precisely; no matter how far away. Even through several walls, she can capture the call of her children exactly.

As the old saying goes, “Maternal ears can always hear.” No matter how far away their children are, mothers are born to hear them. (FromChangde Evening News, May 9, 2020. Translation: Qing Run)

那天回到老家，我和妹妹在外屋一邊擇菜，一邊聊天。

妹妹說：“瞧你多馬虎，連菜都擇不干凈。”

我笑笑說：“我的視力最近下降得厲害，可能是因為經常對著電腦打字。”

這時，正在里屋忙著的母親大聲喊起來：“怎么了，眼睛不好了？”

妹妹笑了，小聲說：“媽耳朵可長了，她就是這樣，又偷聽咱們說話呢。”說著，妹妹沖里屋喊道：“我姐眼睛近視得厲害了，天天對著電腦打字，能不受影響嗎？”

母親飛快地從里屋出來，端詳著我的眼睛說：“好好一雙眼，怎么就近視了呢？以后少寫點字。”

半個月后，我又回到娘家。母親從櫥柜里拿出兩袋枸杞，對我說：“我問了村里的張大夫，她說眼睛不好了，要多用枸杞泡水喝。”

母親這樣做不是一次兩次了。三年前，母親來我這里小住。一天晚上，同事來找我聊天。我們在客廳說話，母親在臥室里看電視。我對同事說：“去年冬天我感冒咳嗽了好幾個月不見好，總覺得現在穿什么保暖內衣、羽絨服，都不如小時候穿家里做的棉衣暖和。就是棉衣太顯臃腫，要不然穿著多舒服。”

同事說：“今年流行一種手工棉襖，用秋衣做里子，用花布做面料，穿出來一點不顯胖。”

沒幾天，母親買來布料，親手給我做了一件棉襖。那年，母親的棉襖陪伴我度過了一個溫暖的冬天。

想起妹妹說的話，母親總喜歡“偷聽”我們說話。其實，哪里是偷聽？母親對兒女的聲音總是天生敏感，不論多么嘈雜，她都能準確地聽到兒女的聲音；不論離得多遠，隔著幾道墻，她都能聽到兒女的呼喚。

“孩子娘，耳朵長”，離得再遠，做母親的也能聽到孩子的聲音。

（摘自《常德晚報》2020年5月9日）