My home in Zhushan, I am a boarder at YYHS. My parents run a store in our hometown selling construction materials. So preoccupied are they with the family business that they are able to come to visit me only once a month, usually on a weekend.

Last Friday, Mother called, saying that she would come to town. So excited did I get that I started to plan where to eat and where to shop right away.

Hardly had I finished school that afternoon when I dashed out of the classroom building, only to find a haggard Mum seated on the stairs at the entrance. I ran up and hugged her. Mum was very sick, with a pale face and eyes closed. A sense of sorrow came upon my heart. Propping her up, I managed to help Mum walk to my dorm. Normally on a visit, we will book a hotel room and stay there overnight, but she was in such bad shape.

Mother was not suffering from a terrible disease; nor was she poisoned or injured, for that matter. She was car-sick. Even a ride in Dad’s car leaves her unwell. Most car sick people vomit. They will be all right with a rest. As long as Mum is car-sick, however, it will be a different story. She will end up as weak as an ant. In extreme cases, she will have to recuperate in hospital for a couple of days before she comes back on her feet. Therefore, I got worried about her.

Sympathetic and understanding, my mates slept in the dorm next door that night so that Mum would be well rested in my bed. The next morning Mum and I woke up around 8. After breakfast at a diner, she insisted on buying me a pair of shoes as she had promised. On the shopping trip, she felt way better and filled me in on the previous day’s events.

“Getting off the bus at the sports centre,” Mother explained, “I felt as if I were as good as dead. It was already four to six. Should you not find me anywhere, I thought, then you would be anxious. So I tried my best to make it to your school as quickly as possible. By the time I reached the entrance, I was totally spent. That was why you saw me seated that way on the stairs.”

As Mother was sharing in her tender voice, tears welled up in my eyes.

The shopping trip over, Mother treated me to a rich meal at a restaurant. Then Mum would have to board a coach and go back to our hometown, Zhushan. I could not but cry, for Mum would be going through the agony again.

Seeing the coach starting, I texted Dad, “You must go to the coach station to pick your wife up. And you must do housework every day.”