Mothers and Daughters: Stories Untold, Hearts Unseen

Have you reread a book and realized your perspective on it has totally shifted? It happened to me this month as I reread The Joy Luck Club for a Zoom book club led by Nicole Conrad, Holly Mackle, and Sarah Armstrong. I also re-watched the movie.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is a mother/daughter novel focused on four Chinese women who immigrated to San Franciso in the war-torn 1940s. The story is set in the 1980s as they interact with their grown American-born daughters, complete with all the tensions, conflicts, misunderstandings, and generational and cultural gaps.

It’s been almost 30 years since I first read and watched The Joy Luck Club. Then, I was the 30-something mom of young kids with a complicated relationship with my 60-something mother. Now, I’m the 60-something mom of adult children, and my mother passed away three years ago. What I wanted for (and from) my mother, I now want for my daughter. A way of seeing and being seen by those we love most.

The scene in the movie that most resonated with me still brings me to tears.

The single adult daughter, June (Jing Mei), flashes back to a New Year’s dinner that occurred months before her mother Suyuan dies. Sitting at the table with June and her parents are the three fellow Joy Luck Club members and their families. Tensions arise as Waverly, Auntie Lindo’s daughter, a child chess prodigy and now a tax attorney, humiliates June for a rejected “unsophisticated” freelance writing project she had done for Waverly’s firm, lasering her with the comment that her writing has “no style.” Suyuan breaks the awkward silence that follows, saying, “True. Cannot teach style. June not like Waverly. Must be born this way.”

In the next scene, June and her mother scrape uneaten crab claws into the kitchen garbage bin. In a trembling voice, June says, “I’m just sorry that you got stuck with such a loser, that I’ve always been so disappointing.”

Suyuan looks confused. “What you mean disappoint? Piano?”

June shakes her head. “Everything: my grades, my job, not getting married, everything you expected of me.”

Suyuan draws closer. “Not expect anything! Never expect! Only hope! Only hoping best for you. That’s not wrong, to hope.”

June chokes up. “No? Well, it hurts, because every time you hoped for something I couldn’t deliver, it hurt. It hurt me, Mommy. And no matter what you hope for, I’ll never be more than what I am. And you never see that, what I really am.”

Suyuan pauses and looks directly into June’s eyes. “That bad crab, only you tried to take it. Everybody else want best quality. You, your thinking different. Waverly took best-quality crab. You took worst, because you have best-quality heart. You have style no one can teach. Must be born this way. I see you.”

Those three words.

“I see you.”

I have always longed to see into the deep heart of people and call it out with concrete examples. I want people to know they are seen and appreciated in all their unique glory. Now, as the mother, I recognize my longings for my kids often make them feel the pressure of expectations. How can I communicate my hope in a way that doesn’t hurt them? How can I tell them the good I see in them that doesn’t feel like unspoken disappointment at their unrealized potential? 

The Joy Luck Club is a universal mother/daughter story. My son doesn’t get caught in these “women webs” as much. The subtexts. The misinterpretations. What I said. What she heard. The layers of hurt and history.

In the book, June reflects, “My mother and I never really understood one another. We translated each other’s meanings, and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more.”

Is this mother/daughter disconnect inevitable?

The mothers in The Joy Luck Club survived hard lives and choices in China. But by the end of the book, the daughters heard their stories. For June, it was after her mother’s death, but it changed and empowered her. These mothers and daughters still drove each other crazy, but there were also moments of tenderness, laughter, and understanding. The stories helped the daughters see their mothers and themselves. It gave them space to be fully themselves.

I’ve now been on both sides of that mother-daughter communications challenge. On one side, trying to interpret my mother’s critical words, facial expressions, silences. On the other, hoping for the best for my daughter as only a mom can and unintentionally hurting her.

I relate to Suyuan. My daughter, too, has “style no one can teach.” A heart that is fierce and tender. A heart for justice and mercy. How can I tell her that without it feeling like pressure to do or be more?

Without telling our stories and exposing our wounds, can we really know each other?

My daughter has heard some of my story, so she knows why I’m triggered by some things, over-controlling in weird ways, and just plain crazy-making most of the time. I’ve shown her some of my scars so she can better understand me and my full-but-faulty love for her.

This never happened with my mother. She passed away without telling me her story.

I ache because I never knew what made her so resilient, and yet so unhappy, bitter, and suspicious. I longed to better understand her. I asked. She diverted. I wanted to see her. She stayed closed off.

What makes me most sad is I think she longed to be seen and known but she just couldn’t trust me with her story.

I am left with this quote from the book.

“That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath, what started the pain.” 

I never knew what started the pain for my mother. I pray I have the courage to share my wounds with my daughter (and my son, too).

Even with the sadness of my mother’s untold story, I am comforted that I knew she loved me and I loved her.

In the end, it’s not hope that lasts. It’s love.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

I Cor 13:7-8

You can see the scene from the movie here.

A few questions to consider:

Is there a book you’ve read or a movie you’ve watched in two different seasons of your life? How did you experience it differently?

What do mothers desire for (and from) their daughters? What do daughters desire from (and for) their mothers?

Do you know your mother’s story? Have you revealed any of your wounds to your daughter?

(I found that “heart rock” from the photos above on the Isle of Iona. It has been a great reminder to me in so many ways.)