I saw her.

The poplar tree’s glossy dark green leaves, the blindingly orange runway, the kids giggling and running, the bright red Chinese Flag, the hot sun. Everything was melted, blurred and went round and round in front of my eyes. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe. My heart beat rapidly and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I saw her, from a distance.

She was in an elegant pink dress with a plaid blue folding umbrella in her left hand. She was nervous and kept wiping the sweat off her forehead. She clutched something tightly and did not move her left arm from her round belly for a moment. It was a folding umbrella with dark blue stripes on it, which seemed inappropriate on such a sunny day. It took her 6 minutes and 47 seconds to walk from the cross roads to the school gate. She took five deep breaths and hesitated once. I counted it. Then I saw the guard stop her at the gate. She clutched the umbrella even more tightly but her left hand was shaking. The blue stripes on the umbrella were jumping and dancing in my head. I couldn’t think.

“Hey you! Pregnant woman. Stop. You’re not a parent of a teenager, are you?”

“I’m…”

“What…Huh!”

That woman was my mom.

This happened in my beloved country, the land where I was born and raised. We have modern-style skyscrapers built next to ancient palaces, viaducts above unpaved dirt roads, and fashion bloggers walking alongside monks. For over five thousands years, family has been the most important value. Starting at the 1970s, the one-child policy, however, limits the number of children a family can have to one.

For policy reasons, very few families have more than one child. I have two siblings and I am 14 years older than the my next sibling. In the recent 30 years, there had never been any situation like ours. My family’s situation defies the one-child policy. It means punishment. It makes us stand out in the crowd wherever we are.

It felt like the whole world knew the news immediately, and I suddenly became a hot topic for discussion. All my classmates and neighbors were so curious that they asked me tons of questions to dig up all my family secrets. The sharp questions followed me everywhere. “Why?” I didn’t know! I was frightened to face all those things. The fear turned to be horror and finally the deep horror drove me mad. It was a shame.

“What a poor, poor little girl. “ people said.

My mom’s pregnancy became a stigma that followed me everywhere.

“Tomorrow all the students, parents and teachers will go to the parents’ meeting,” I said.

“I know.” mom said.

“All of them! Mom, “ I almost cried.

“…I know.’”

“Mother! It would be embarrassing.”

“Is it embarrassing,” she looked at me, “or do I make you feel embarrassed?”

Afraid of being recognized as the daughter of a once-again pregnant woman, the next day I climbed to the top of the school building and paced back and forth on the roof to distract myself. It was extremely hot on the roof, and the poplar tree’s glossy dark green leaves, the blindingly orange runway, the kids giggling and running, the bright red Chinese Flag, the hot sun…the world turned giddily before my eyes. But I couldn’t force myself to look away from her. I watched her get stopped by the guard. I watched her walking slowly through the playground under the sun, taking a breath every ten meters. I watched her clutching the umbrella tightly and putting it in front of her round belly—to hide it, for me. I watched her speeding up, walking to the hall as fast as the other parents accompanied by their children. But she was alone from the beginning.

I just watched her, in her darkest hour, walking alone. The guilt over hating my mother did not touch a deep chord within me. But when I saw her, tightly holding the plaid blue folding umbrella, looking for me to save her, I was wounded. For years, every family has had one child. It’s what’s done. Just because it’s what’s done doesn’t mean it is what should be done. At that moment I changed my mind. I realized that there could be no one—no one but a mother, who can be brave enough to face all the humiliation and embarrassment and rumors the world brings her, just because of her love to her child. Her trembling left hand, the sunny day, the umbrella, the dark blue stripes flashed in my head over and over again. I knew what I could do for her was no more than one thousandth of my mother’s love for me. And what I owed her was far beyond what I could make up in my whole life. Something, deep in my mind, crashed. Yesterday I was embarrassed by her. And I even told her that. I almost pretended I was not her daughter.

But, I am her daughter. I always am. Using all the strength in my body, in the exclamation of my classmates and their parents, I rushed down stairs, hugged the pregnant mother: my mother. “Mom,” I said, holding her trembling hand tightly, “I am late.”

That was eight years ago. I left my hometown for high school in Beijing in 2010. My sister was born in 2011 and two years later my brother was born. I came to the US in 2016 for college. I bring my mom’s umbrella with me wherever I am.

For years, I am asked for times why I carry such a old-fashioned, plaid blue umbrella that seems like nothing special. I can never give an exact answer. If I have to say something, I tell people about that day, about the hot wind on the roof, the poplar tree’s glossy dark green leaves, the blindingly orange runway, the kids giggling and running, and the bright red flag. I get very excited and speak quickly, even though I know people are not really listening. They want a quick answer, something exotic that they can tell other people. But I tell them a story that is so remote to them. “That’s…interesting,” they say. However, after speaking out all these details that seem so random and irrelevant, I find peace. It is my redemption.

My mother’s pink dress, her trembling left hand, the dark blue stripes on the umbrella never fade in my head. Each time I look at the umbrella and close my eyes, the taste of the hot wind that summer, the sound of the rustled leaves, and all of these will come to life again. It is so close to me and so far away from me. There is always one moment I feel that I am looking back at the story of someone else. It is not my own story anymore. It could be anyone’s story. It is what’s going on. It is an episode of the Chinese society during the process from tradition to modern. My mother’s umbrella is the monument. It reminds me of how the difference of my family has shaped me and formed my character, and guides me to share the history while embracing the new.