I Got A Pair Of Gloves
GED English
By Chanda Hallewell
One day I went to my mom's house. In Cambodia people often leave their front unlocked. I walked in
the house and I called out “Where are you mom?” She didn't answer. I walked around the house looking
for her. I called again and she answered from the garden. I followed her voice until I found her. When I
saw her she was in the garden sitting on her small, wooden stool. She was digging in the soil with her
spade. She was using this small, metal tool, which is the only one she owned, to turn over the soil and
give the plants more oxygen.
Since my mom retired from the factory, her garden had become so important to her. She only grew
taro. She used the taro to feed the whole family. She also sold them to vendors from the local market for
a little bit of money. And sometimes the garden gave her an excuse to get out of the house so she
wouldn't get bored. She loved her garden.
When I walked to her I said “Hi.”
She looked up at me and said “Hi” back.
I look down at her hands and I was shocked. They had a thin layer of black soil covering them. What
was shocking was the condition of her skin. The back of her hands had a deep red sunburn from the hot
Cambodian sun. There were open cracks running along them. They were raw and bleeding. She also
had old sores that had crusted over. Her palms had angry blisters from years of digging with her spade.
Her fingernails were a mess. Some of them were gnarled and colored black and brown. Others were too
short layer of dirt stuck under them. Although she was only 45 years old, her hands looked like they were
100 years old.
I said “Mom what happened to your hand?”
She said “It is because I worked in the garden.”
I stayed with my mom for a few days. Then I went back to the city of Phnom Penh to work at my two
restaurant jobs. One day in between jobs I made a trip to the market to buy some gloves for my mom. I
got her a pair of yellow, rubber dish gloves.
Two weeks later on my day off I returned to my mom's house. I showed her the gloves and she said
“Thank you.”
As normal I stayed with my mom and then returned to the city for work. Two weeks later I came back to
visit my mom again.
When I arrived at the house she was outside working in the garden. I walked up to her and after I said
“Hello” I look down at her hands. I noticed that she wasn't wearing her gloves.
I said “Mom! Why aren't you wearing your gloves?”
She said, “The gloves look so nice. I didn't want to get them dirty.”
When I heard what she said, it made me very sad and I cried. I told her “The gloves are not expensive. I
can buy more but your hands I can't buy.”
In Our Own Words 2016
37