Creation of Mother's love - insoles
Saturday, March 04 2017 XueYing Yang
Insoles or commonly known as shoe-pads, are a very common object in our daily life. These shoe-pads are also a kind of art work with ethic flavor in the hands of intelligent Chinese women, who embroider every single inch of yearns onto the shoe-pads to wish for good life and bless for families.
My mother is also among millions of those intelligent Chinese women, quick-witted and nimble-fingered. She has her own understanding of embroidery. She embroiders all her thoughts and intelligence on the shoe-pads with a needle and pieces of threads of different colors. When I was a small boy, my mother used to make insoles for my father and my siblings. To make the insoles, she first cut a piece of hard paperboard to the shape of a foot, and then she chose one piece of thick cloth and two pieces of thin cloth. The thick cloths were the lining and the thin ones were the shell fabric. The cloths were cut along the borderline of the pre-cut paperboard of a foot. Then she would brush some paste onto both sides of the lining evenly, put two shell fabrics on it and press them together with heavy weight. After all these procedures, my mother began to embroider beautiful patterns onto the insoles. Her favorite patterns were peonies, roses, tigers, and mountains.
When I was young, I used to sit by her side to watch her needle transpiercing the thick cloth again and again until a petal of a rose or an ear of a dog appeared. I was so amazed at the moment and I eagerly asked my mother to teach me that magic. But she would just smile at me benignly. For most of the time, my mother would talk to me while embroidering. I often asked her why the insoles for me were so large and she would reply that they were for me and my wife in the future when I grow up. She always said that she would make a lot of shoe-pads with varied patterns and give them to me and my wife as marriage presents. Since that time, I looked forward to growing up and getting married quickly so that I could use my mother’s shoe-pads at once although I could not understand what growing-up and being married really means.
Time ticks away and 20 years have passed in a flash. My mother’s hair has become grey, some even white and her eyesight is not as good as before. However, she did not stop using her needle in the 20 years. She is always preparing my marriage presents with her own pace. I am still not married at this moment, but I notice that her hands begin to shake unconsciously and her eyesight blurs. How many 20 years are there in one’s life? My mother is still making great efforts for her cherished desire. Her time flies with her needle and thread, while her great love for her children is enliven with couples of shoe-pads.