My mother has always had the best stories. If you've read my cookbooks, then you'll be familiar with many of them. It's hard to pick my favorite, but in honor of Mother's Day, I'll share how my mom, Sunbee, found out she was going to be a mother.
In Korea, it's often said that mothers-to-be will find out they are pregnant through their dreams. Sunbee did, in fact, have strange dreams and her life was marked by what can only be described as the fingerprints of magic.
A few weeks before she discovered she was pregnant with me (the medical way), she had a dream that she was back in the fields of Korea, near her childhood home. This was where she would sneak off to at night, when the rest of her family slept. Barefoot, she'd dig her heels into the ground, squat down, plunge her fingers into the recently tilled soil, looking for a grubby piece of sweet potato. Finding one was like finding gold. She'd wipe off the dirt and feast on the starchy, sweet flesh while the moon splashed its gaze down her back.
In her dream, she did the same--bent over the soil, reached into the dirt, hoping to strike gold. Only this time, she saw something silver. What could possibly reflect the moonlight like diamonds? she wondered. She kept digging, her fingers furrowing deeper into the soil, but, amazingly, it slithered away from her whenever she came close to grasping it. Slick with sweat, she finally managed to wrangle the glittering thing out of the hole, heaving back until she landed on her rear.
It was a fish.
A big, silvery, slithering fish.
She brought it to her chest. Cradled it to her heart.
And the moon watched it all unfold, saying nothing, as Sunbee held a bit of quicksilver in her arms.
That was how Sunbee found out she was going to be a mother. She was 29 years old.
If you are a mother, did you have any unusual, extraordinary portents that motherhood was in your future? Did you have a strange dream that you still can't forget? Regardless, Happy Mother's Day to all of you who have children or have played the role of mother in someone's life!
