Here is a touching story which I told my Grade 8 students. (Before reading, prepare a box of tissues)

The One-eyed Mother

“My mom only had one eye. I hated her… She was such an embarrassment. She cooked for students & teachers to support the family. There was this one day during elementary school and my mom came. I was so embarrassed. How could she do this to me? I threw her a hateful look and ran out.

The next day at school: “Your mom only has one eye?!?!”…eeeee said a friend. I wished my mom would just disappear from this world. So I said to my mom, “Mom… Why don’t you have the other eye?! If you’re only gonna make me a laughing stock, why don’t you just die?!!!”

My mom did not respond. I guess I felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to think that I had said what I’d wanted to say all this time. Maybe it was because my mom hadn’t punished me, but I didn’t think that I had hurt her feelings very badly.

That night, I woke up, and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. My mom was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that she might wake me. I took a look at her, and then turned away. Because of the thing I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my mother who was crying out of her one eye. So I told myself that I would grow up and become successful.

Then I studied real hard. When I was in college, I left my mother and went to Singapore to study. Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. Then I had kids, too. Now I’m living happily as a successful man I like it here because it’s a place that doesn’t remind me of my mom in Seoul.

This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when…

What?! Who’s this?! It was my mother. Still with her one eye. I felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. Even my children ran away, scared of my mom’s eye. And I asked her, “Who are you?!” “I don’t know you!!!” as if trying to make that real. I screamed at her, “How dare you come to my house and scare my children! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!!!”

And to this, my mother quietly answered, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I may have gotten the wrong address,”
and she disappeared out of sight.

Thank goodness. She doesn’t recognize me. I was quite relieved. I told myself that I wasn’t going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life. Then a wave of relief came upon me.

One day, a letter regarding a school reunion came to my house in Singapore. So, lying to my wife that I was going on a business trip, I went. After the reunion, I went down to the old shack, that I used to call a house. Just out of curiosity

There, I found my mother fallen on the cold ground. But I did not shed a single tear. She had a piece of paper in her hand. It was a letter to me.

“My son. I think my life has been long enough now. And… I wont visit Singapore anymore. But would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come visit me once in a while? I miss you so much. And I was so glad when I heard you were coming  back to Seoul for the reunion. But I decided not to go to the school. For you… And I’m sorry that I only have one eye, and I was an embarrassment for you. You see, when you were very little, you got into an accident, and lost your eye. As a mom, I couldn’t stand watching you having to grow up with only one eye. So I gave you mine. I was so proud of my son that was seeing a whole new world for me, in my place, with that eye. I was never upset at you for anything you did. The couple times that you were angry with me. I thought to myself, ‘It’s because he loves me.’ My son… Oh, my son… “