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，我和妹妹在外屋一边择菜，一边聊天。

妹妹说：“瞧你多马虎，连菜都择不干净。”

我笑笑说：“我的视力最近下降得厉害，可能是因为经常对着电脑打字。”

这时，正在里屋忙着的母亲大声喊起来：“怎么了，眼睛不好了？”

妹妹笑了，小声说：“妈耳朵可长了，她就是这样，又偷听咱们说话呢。”说着，妹妹冲里屋喊道：“我姐眼睛近视得厉害了，天天对着电脑打字，能不受影响吗？”

母亲飞快地从里屋出来，端详着我的眼睛说：“好好一双眼，怎么就近视了呢？以后少写点字。”

半个月后，我又回到娘家。母亲从橱柜里拿出两袋枸杞，对我说：“我问了村里的张大夫，她说眼睛不好了，要多用枸杞泡水喝。”

母亲这样做不是一次两次了。三年前，母亲来我这里小住。一天晚上，同事来找我聊天。我们在客厅说话，母亲在卧室里看电视。我对同事说：“去年冬天我感冒咳嗽了好几个月不见好，总觉得现在穿什么保暖内衣、羽绒服，都不如小时候穿家里做的棉衣暖和。就是棉衣太显臃肿，要不然穿着多舒服。”

同事说：“今年流行一种手工棉袄，用秋衣做里子，用花布做面料，穿出来一点不显胖。”

没几天，母亲买来布料，亲手给我做了一件棉袄。那年，母亲的棉袄陪伴我度过了一个温暖的冬天。

想起妹妹说的话，母亲总喜欢“偷听”我们说话。其实，哪里是偷听？母亲对儿女的声音总是天生敏感，不论多么嘈杂，她都能准确地听到儿女的声音；不论离得多远，隔着几道墙，她都能听到儿女的呼唤。

“孩子娘，耳朵长”，离得再远，做母亲的也能听到孩子的声音。

（摘自《常德晚报》2020年5月9日）