Mother-in-law's forearm

"Look at Mom's forearm. It’s more than twice as thick as yours."

When he saw my mother-in-law from Los Angeles rolling up her arms and helping me with the housework, my husband said a word. My mother-in-law was shy, covering her mouth with the hand that looked like a back of a turtle after peeping at my slender forearm.

My mother-in-law, a native of Hamkyong-do, Hamhung had a hard time raising five children while her husband went abroad from his youth. The fingerprints taken during the immigration process to the U.S. were not clearly available. Every time she went back to do the fingerprints the staff sent her back and even told her not to wash clothes for a while. Of course, it is the story of the early '70s when there was no washing machine.

As soon as my mother-in-law enters my house, she took out all the pot in the kitchen and started cleaning. "Look at this. The more you wipe, the shinier you shine. She laughs brightly, holding a sparkling pot.

Unlike me, who only wipes the place where I can see and sit, she used a painting brush and said, "You have to clean the corner well so that the house is clean," and sweeps the dust from every corner. Applied clolox to the toilet bowl and bath and cleaned for it to polish.

Went to the market and bought the flounders and preserve it in salt. Add millet steam rice and shredded radish into the preserved flounders.

She waited for a rainy day and enjoyed doing the laundry with the rainwater. "You have to the laundry in the rainwater and beat it with a bat to make it white," she said, looking for the bat, but it can't be. "How nice New York is because it rains a lot. When you wash your car in the rain, it glows." All she has to do is to look out the rain window and rest, holding back what she wanted to clean the car parked outside. I took her to Central Park. She sat on the bench, never resting, looking for vegetables to put in soybean paste stew in the evening. My mother-in-law's work goes on without end.

When neighbors said hello, she covered her mouths with one hand and said "No English," and she hold my hand tightly with the other. My mother-in-law and I have developed a habit of holding hands as soon as we left the house. She wants to visit again because she wants to hold my hand.