Ironically Similar
So lately my mother has been saying the same words to me over and over again: “I am sorry.” I went to Japan for a year as an exchange student and all my mother said to me when I was there was, “I am sorry” for not being able to give me “the best” (because the living cost in Japan is really high) and when I finally went back to my home country, my older sister had just given birth to her first baby boy, less than a month old when I arrived. My mother again, said, “I am sorry” for she is now preoccupied with her new grandson. I haven't even had time to tell her what happened in Japan, what I did in Japan etc. We just didn't have the time. I also didn't have my own room because it was used for the baby, most of the time I slept by the sofa as I typed my final assignment. Every time my mother passed the living room, there will be another “Sorry”. A month passed, and she went to my sis's place to take care of the newborn (because my sis needs the help and the husband is working), and again the only thing Mom said to me when she phoned me or briefly went home to take some stuff was, “I am sorry.”
No. No, Mother, I am sorry.
… but then if I say sorry, will Mother feel better? All these sorry render me exhausted. I think, on the contrary, we need more “Thank you” than a sorry. Because there is only “giving” in “thank you”, while a “sorry” needs a “return” and I don't think I want to ask anything else from a mother that has given me so much...
There really is nothing more painful than hearing your mother saying sorry to you for being who she is and what she is capable of. At least that makes me want to say sorry for being who I am and what I am capable of, if only I can give more to my mother so that she doesn't need to feel that way.
Every mother is a hero. Our very existence is the testament of it.