In Translation / Homecoming

Story by Aurora Zhang

| SHORT WRITING CONTEST

It was written that never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst. The sun is not scorching, but it is warm when you open your eyes to this new body, the blankets surrounding you light but wrapped snug. Something familiar is wafting in from another room, ginger and chicken broth, reminiscent of a memory from another lifetime ago.

In Chinese, instead of asking “how are you doing?” you ask, “have you eaten?” Every “I love you” is tasted in a bowl of handmade dumplings at a family dinner, in a dish of prepared fruit placed in front of you as you do homework into the night. A plate of your favorite fried rice as a peace offering after a fight. A bowl of porridge brought to your lips when you were sick, your small body shaking with fever.

But today you are well, because there will be no more sickness either—the carpet is soft on your feet, and you make your way up to the kitchen table, where you hear the sounds of bubbling soup, the dicing of shiitake mushrooms on a chopping board. You wait eagerly, patiently. You offer to help, but your hands are small and new. But there’s no problem at all, because all you are here to do is watch the love in every careful knife stroke and every stir of the pot. They make this soup for healing, in China, with chicken bones and prunes; they serve it to strengthen the bodies of women after they have given birth. 

It had been so long since you had been taken care of like this—what does that mean anymore, “long”? Is it possible for every part of you to been seen all at once? Your old, aching bones, dreaming of the flavors of your childhood. You haloed in the exhausted exuberance of new motherhood, after the travails of labor. You and all your history, your ancestors before you. But today you are a child, and today you are filled with the radiance of knowing that there is a whole new earth to be explored, so many new things to see and to learn about a world that you know, deep in the freshness of your body, is healed and whole again. You squirm in excitement, before hearing a gentle hush.

“Not yet. Make sure you eat up first.”

The bowl of soup is set before you. You never knew that you could crave more of this love, because in this place you do not hunger, but every bite brings you an ever-deepening joy. You watch the delight and love on the Maker’s face. It was written in the stumbling language of your mother and father’s homemade meals from a kitchen table long ago, and it is written here, in all its shining glory and its quiet eloquence.