Momma’s Boy
If I pour myself a drink at her house, she’ll check me. “Ma, I’m a grown man. I can have a drink.”
“I don’t care if you’re 50, I’ll always be your mom and still tell you what’s what.”
Chun Ok Hui was born in Pusan, Korea on December 25, 1948. She absolutely loved school, but after her third grade year, she had to drop out to help on the family farm. Later, she married my father, Joseph McWhorter, and had three children: George Louis, Leigh Adrian, and Catherine Anastasia. She was a full time mom, worked at a restaurant as a server, and studied her ass off to become a US citizen all by the time I was four years old. After my father drank himself to death, she took on another job and did her best to make sure that we always had everything that they needed. From football cleats, basketball shoes, and track spikes to piano lessons, I never went without. She did the same for my brother and sister. A tall task for a mother of biracial children. All three of her children graduated from college: one nurse and two teachers...Badass single mom shit.
My mom never sat down. She always had to be doing something: cleaning, cooking, yard work—always something. When I was a kid, I didn’t appreciate her like I should have. I just figured every mom was that way. Why was she always so busy?
Our talks consisted of me jumping into whatever chore she was focused on at the time. At the beginning, my timing was off. I had to figure it out. Talking to my mom took split second precision. Find the rhythm like shooting the pocket in double dutch. Holding the trash bag while she was sweeping or washing the dishes while she cooked. She’d explain the steps of her recipes while giving me stories from her childhood. (I’m a pretty good cook, by the way.) Those were always the best conversations. That mom thing...whatever it is, she has it.
I was five and we had just moved to the section of El Paso affectionately known as the Northeast. If you’re from El Paso, you know about the Northside. If you’re not from EP, don’t go to the North without a guide. The kids on my street were a little older and different than what I was used to. They instigated a fight between a boy named Joey Baker and me. Joey was a couple of years my elder. I had never been in a fight before. I didn’t understand what was going on. Why were we fighting?
I walked home, nose bloodied. My mother saw the blood and asked what had happened. I pieced it all together for her like I was on the witness stand but she didn’t need an explanation. Even though she never graduated from high school, she had a doctorate in the streets. With the prowess of Judge Judy, she surmised exactly what had transpired. My tiny 4’11” Korean mother proceeded to walk me down to his house. It was like the hospital scene in Malcolm X. The kids were still out front playing. “Go beat his ass.” Because her English was limited, my mom didn’t mince words; she was direct. “Now.” She has a scowl that would make a hardened criminal cower. We squared off in the yard and went at it again but with a different result. My mom watched and then walked me back home. “Don’t take shit from anyone...ever.” Her English was broken but she somehow enunciated curse words like Samuel L. Jackson.
Tough love but definitely love and always love. There is no doubt about it. Not many hugs or spoken “I love you’s” but the episode of my first fight was just one of the countless examples when she showed her love for me. No denying it; I owe every ounce of good in me to my mother. It’s amplified even more so with her grandchildren.
My kids love their Grandma Ok Hui. She does kooky Korean shit but it’s such solid stuff. They know that they’re going to have a random array for fruit on a platter and eat meals until they’re about to explode. There’s no such thing as a full stomach in a Korean home. Whenever cold and flu season was about to hit, she’d make me ginseng tea and chicken soup. And she made me drink it boiling hot. “It’s not the same if you drink it when it cools down.” As if it somehow lost its magical healing powers when it cooled down. You want to know something? I can’t remember the last time I got sick. You want to know something else? I’m always cleaning, cooking, and looking for anything to keep myself busy. I also give my kids ginseng tea and chicken soup whenever cold and flu season is about to hit. Kooky grandma turned morphed into kooky dad.
She had a stroke a couple of summers ago. She lost the use of her right arm and couldn’t do much without rigorous assistance. My brother just happens to run the best stroke unit in Austin so we moved her in with him. I Facetime with her every Sunday. She is not technologically savvy in the least bit. While we were living in El Paso, she would call me to go to her house, because she thought her TV or cable was malfunctioning. She accidentally pressed the input button. It was the source input button every time. “Mom. The source button? Word?” And we’d laugh. She still fumbles with the phone when we get on FaceTime. She holds the phone at weird angles, zooms in way too close to her face, or reverses the camera. And we laugh. Compared to my siblings, I easily put her through the most grief. Also compared to my siblings, I easily gave her the most laughs. It’s definitely a point of pride for me.
My kids and I went to visit her last Thanksgiving. She was already sitting up, speaking more coherently, feeding herself, and moving around in her walker. She’s tough, man...a fighter
