The universal gesture of love from an Asian parent, especially an Asian mother, is the cutting and serving of fruit. For some reason, they just seem to really like citrus. Especially oranges. 

This feels right for many reasons. Like citrus, my parents (especially my mama) have a tough rind that protects the sweetness in the middle. Citrus fruits are often offered in mounds to the ancestors for prosperity, luck, and happiness. How fitting it is for our mothers to offer us their happiness perfectly prepared, cut up, and arranged for our nourishment.

The means by which my Chinese (Hokkien-speaking, ethnically Chinese, but born and raised in the Philippines) mama cuts an orange is the same every time. She grasps the orange with her worn, plump hands with the navel out and methodically dissects it into halves, quarters, and then to eighths. The process is essential to the gesture. It would be unthinkable for her to bring whole oranges to tennis practice or YMCA rec league basketball games. After all, how are the girls supposed to peel an orange when they have a game to play? If she did send me and my sister with whole oranges, she would take the time to make a small cut between the peel and the fruit so we were able to peel them quicker at halftime. 

If we ate oranges together, she would always set aside the juiciest, sweetest, choice pieces for me and my sister. She would content herself with the dry, slightly more sour pieces instead, putting mine and my sister’s happiness ahead of hers. There was a time she would pack me rice and other food she had cooked for lunch. To my dismay, this was not what all the other kids at school were eating. I happily ate the same food at home, but at school it smelled and looked so different. I asked to have sandwiches for school lunches instead. To accommodate my request, my ma started waking up earlier every morning to make me these sandwiches instead of packing leftovers from dinner. 

Even in her immigration story she took the bitter slices for herself for her family. She immigrated to the United States in 1992 after marrying my father. My papa was in search of a better life and opportunity and my ma married into this search. She left everything and everyone she knew in the Philippines to come to this new country with her husband as her only friend. She told us of hours spent in the mall just to kill time and to be in the proximity of other people, waiting for him to come home. On the other side of the ocean, my grandmother would call my mama sobbing, asking her to, “Toh lai.”

When the orange slices are served, the presentation has no middle ground. Sometimes the plate just slides into my line of sight from my periphery after dinner. Other times my mother would laud her own orange-picking skills from the local Ranch 99 (hotly debated, but, also known in other circles as 99 Ranch) exclaiming, “This batch looks ugly, but I chose the ones that are sweet inside! Lai chia!” But the sweetest times were after fights, when she would just say, “Here.” In those moments slurping up the orange juice, you knew the love was there and reconciliation was inevitable.

That love was tested when I accidentally came out to my ma on my 25th birthday — over Facetime, no less. Despite flying in between Seattle and LA for a week at a time for five months after my papa’s stroke, I avoided her like most people do with durian. I used to call her after dates with men and sob about how frustrated I was. When I started dating women, I ceased to call her altogether. I was afraid that through our interactions, her eyes would search mine and hear the girl who so desperately wanted to be known and loved, living her truth. I was caught in the dichotomy of wanting to come out and be loved as my authentic self but also not wanting to completely obliterate the hopes my ma had for me — not to mention, disrespecting all those dry, slightly sour orange slices she had eaten for our family, for me. Mama had posted the absolute cutest collage of me on Facebook the way only a mother could for my birthday. I Facetimed her to say thank you and found myself peppered with questions I had been avoiding for the past year:

“Dee chiew ah lo?” (How are you now?)
“Di chia zai kee beh?” (Did you eat breakfast already?)
“Kin nah am, di beh kiao di eh pieng yew choo kee boh?” (Are you going out with your friends tonight?)
Then eventually to questions about a new therapist I was seeing:
“Ee simi teh?” (What is he like?)
I skated and skated around the questions she was asking until finally she asked:
“What clientele does he specialize in?”
I managed to squeak out:
“LGBT Christians.”
She then said:
“Great! But what does that have to do with you?”
Then the truth that I had been threatening to spew came bubbling out:
“I’ve started dating women and I’ve been so much happier.”
She then looked at me for a long time and said:
“I have so many questions, but today is your birthday. I will ask you another day.”

In that moment, she cut the orange for me. She cut into her own aspirations and happiness, to preserve mine. 

The following months were filled with silence —  a silence that cocooned the previously active family group chat. Where there once were orange slices, juicy and split to be shared, there were now only whole oranges; each of us with our respective rinds protecting our sweet vulnerabilities in the middle. 

Eventually my parents asked to Facetime me to “discuss things.” But when the time came around, there was no inquisition, or question like, “Why are you like this?” The only questions they asked were ones of concern about my current state and how I was now. There was my papa saying, “Man or woman, you have a lot of good going for you and don’t let anyone take that away from you,” and my mama saying, “You will always have a place to stay with me.” There was only the table with all of us seated around it enjoying a plate of oranges. Only this time, there are no dry or sour pieces.

Sometimes when I cut my own oranges, sour pieces do inevitably show up. After all, as much as I love my mama, I do live two states away and am “adulting.” So I cut my own. There were months before I came out when my heartache (sponsored by Break Up) felt overwhelmingly lonely, because all I wanted to do was to call her like I used to. Coming out to her opened a new dimension of her love for me. I never would have imagined that my religious Chinese mother would become my confidant again. But here we are, commiserating about my latest and greatest heartache. I no longer have to silently stomach that bitter taste because now, my mama is once again, just another phone call (or Facetime) away.