Shining Smile

I think of my mom, actually she was a lot of fun for her generation. She wasn't really stuffy, she was actually a prankster. Even at work, she liked to play pranks on her coworkers. That's her philosophy, she thinks that life shouldn't be too serious. Even though she had a tough life.

Whenever I think of her, she's smiling. But I when I see her in my mind, it's always with the gold teeth! I guess that's how I saw her when I was a kid.

She was self conscious about her gold teeth when she came over because nobody has them. At that time, it was called "bao gum". Maybe just the veneer was gold. They would just put the gold over the tooth to keep it.

Whenever I turn on the TV and the "Price is Right" is on, I talk to the drawing of her. It was her favorite show even though she didn't speak English. She loved "The Ten Commandments" and "Ben Hur" and watched them every year. She preferred to watch it on TV with all the commercials even though I bought her a DVD copy. Those were her two favorite movies.

And she loved nature and plants. And she loved to sew. She would get the pattern from work and then go buy the material and make herself a dress that's in style. When she made the dress at work and she liked it, she asked for the pattern and then she would make herself a dress. So she'd be in style. The clothing she worked on went to Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdales. So she'd always be on the top of fashion.

Julie Lee
New Jersey