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A Mother’s Love in Her Mother Tongue
How learning my mother’s native language has brought us closer
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
‒Nelson Mandela
When I was a kid, I read the book Ender’s Game and I remember loving it. But now as an adult, I only remember one scene from that book vividly. In it, the main character, Ender, was speaking with his friend, Alai, and when they hugged, Alai whispered the word “salaam” to him. I remember the intimacy that was contained in that word. A word that was foreign to me but was even more foreign to Ender in his world where people only ever spoke “Standard” (English). But somehow, without even knowing what it meant, Ender knew that Alai sharing this word with him was special and something he held close to his heart. I experienced a moment like that recently when my mother told me she loved me.
My mom has said she loves me all twenty-three years of my life. She says it every time we get off the phone with one another, every time I leave her and my dad’s house, and randomly when I’m near her. I’ve heard those three words from her lips more times than I can count. But recently she said it differently.
