The Secret Under the Fifteen-Watt Bulb

My mother was widowed for thirty-three years. There was one thing she kept hidden from me for thirty of them, and I only learned the truth after she passed away.

The day my mother died was a bright, sunny day.

The June sun was merciless, making one's scalp tingle with the heat. I knelt in the corridor of the funeral parlor, clutching the old canvas bag she had left behind. It contained everything she owned: an ID card, a little over three hundred yuan in cash, a ring of keys, and a neatly folded letter.

I didn’t dare open that letter on the spot. It wasn't that I didn't want to; I was afraid. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stop crying in front of so many people.

My mother’s name was Li Xiuying. She married my father at nineteen, became a widow at twenty-three, and left us at fifty-six. She remained a widow for thirty-three years.

"Thirty-three years"—it’s a short phrase, but she endured it day by day.

When I was a child, I didn't understand. I just thought my mother had a bad temper; she would flare up at the slightest provocation. While other mothers spoke softly, my mother spoke as if she were picking a fight. I resented her loud voice, her lack of style, and the faded blue jacket she wore to every parent-teacher meeting—a garment that made me feel ashamed in front of my classmates.

Thinking back now, I was a real bastard.

I was only three when my father passed away, and I have almost no memory of him. I only heard from my grandmother that he had an accident at a construction site; a scaffold collapsed, and he couldn't be saved. The contractor fled, and since it was a private site, the matter was settled with a compensation of ten thousand yuan.

My mother was twenty-three that year—hardly more than a girl just out of university by today's standards.

She never remarried.

My paternal grandmother urged her, my maternal grandmother urged her, and the neighbors all chimed in. They said she was young and that life would be hard with a child; they told her to find a new family. My mother remained silent. If pressed, she would simply say: "We'll talk when the kid is older."

That wait lasted thirty-three years.

She worked at a towel factory on three-shift rotations for a pittance. To earn extra money, she took on piecework at home—gluing cardboard boxes, stringing beads, sewing gloves. Often, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I would see her sitting under a fifteen-watt bulb, head bowed, sewing stitch by stitch.

The light was dim and yellow; her shadow on the wall was large and thin.

When I was in junior high, the school required a 120-yuan fee for uniforms. I delayed telling her for three days. Finally, unable to put it off any longer, I mentioned it during dinner.

Holding her bowl, she paused for a moment and said, "Understood."

The next morning, she gave me the money—stacks of small bills, fives and tens, folded neatly. When I took them, I felt they were damp. Only later did I realize it was the sweat from her palms. To make sure the money didn't scatter, she had bound it tightly with two rubber bands.

In high school, she once came to the school to bring me a quilt. It had just rained, and the roads were difficult; she had cycled for forty minutes. By the time she reached the gate, her trouser legs were splattered with mud.

I went out to get the quilt. She stood outside the iron fence, pushing it through the gaps in the bars. I told her to find a place to rest before heading back, but she said no, she had to get back for the night shift.

She turned to leave, walked a few paces, then looked back. "Study hard," she said. "Don't compare what you eat or wear with others."

I gave a brief grunt of agreement and walked back with the quilt. After a few steps, I looked back. She was already on her bicycle; her silhouette grew smaller and smaller at the end of the road until it became a mere dot and vanished behind a row of poplar trees.

I’ve remembered that silhouette my whole life.

Later, I got into a university in the provincial capital. On the day I left, she saw me off at the village entrance, carrying a woven plastic sack filled with the quilt she’d made, a few changes of clothes, and a jar of her homemade pickles.

I told her to go back, not to see me off any further. She said okay, and told me to be careful on the road.

After I'd walked a bit, I heard her shout from behind: "Call me when you arrive!"

I didn't turn around. I just raised my hand to show I’d heard.

Once I was settled at school, I called her. She said, "After you left, my heart felt so empty. I stood at the village entrance for a long time before going back."

I replied, "Why feel empty? It's not like I'm never coming back."

She laughed softly on the other end, as if afraid of waking someone up.

During those four years of university, I saved money desperately. I worked whenever I could and avoided going home just to save on travel expenses. Now I wonder how my mother managed to swallow her New Year’s Eve dumplings all those years alone.

The year I graduated, I found a job in the capital. The salary wasn't high, but I could finally support myself. I told my mother, "Mom, stop working. I'll take care of you."

She said, "Take care of yourself first. I won't be a burden to you."

She kept working at that towel factory, kept the three-shift rotations, and kept gluing boxes, stringing beads, and sewing gloves. I told her to rest, but she said she couldn't stay idle—that if she stopped, her whole body would feel restless.

Eventually, I found a partner, got married, and settled down in the city. I brought her to live with us, but she wanted to leave after three days. she said she wasn't used to it; she didn't know anyone in the building and felt suffocated.

I told her I was worried about her being alone, but she insisted she was fine and told me to live my own life and not mind her.

That was her temperament—hard as a stone.

After I married, I visited home even less. I’d go back for the Lunar New Year, stay for two or three days, and leave. Every time I left, she’d say, "It's fine, you stay busy. I’m in good health."

I believed her. I really believed her.

She never told me when she felt unwell; she never told me how hard things were. On the phone, it was always the same few phrases: "I'm doing great," "Don't worry about me," "As long as you're doing well, that's enough."

And I actually stopped worrying.

A year before she passed, I called home and Auntie Wang from next door answered. She told me my mother was in the county hospital.

I panicked and drove back overnight. When I reached the hospital, I saw her lying in bed, thin as a bag of bones. I asked what was wrong, and she said it was just an old ailment, nothing serious.

I asked the doctor. He said it was coronary heart disease, compounded by long-term exhaustion; her body was severely depleted and needed rest. The doctor was grave; he said if she continued like this, it would be dangerous.

I stayed with her for a week. Every day she urged me to go back to work, telling me not to let it interfere with my job and that she was fine.

I asked, "How can you say you're fine?" She insisted she was, that she’d be discharged in a few days, and that I should leave.

I couldn't win the argument, so I left. Before going, I gave her five thousand yuan and told her to nourish her health.

After she was discharged, I called to check on her. She said she felt much better and told me not to worry.

And again, I believed her. Why the hell was I so ready to believe?

One night last March, around two in the morning, I got a call from Auntie Wang. She was crying. "Your mother isn't going to make it. Come back quickly!"

My wife and I drove through the night. I covered the four hundred kilometers in three and a half hours. All the way, I kept thinking: No, my mother is tough. She said she was in good health.

By the time I reached home, she was gone.

Auntie Wang said she had dropped by for a visit and found my mother collapsed on the kitchen floor, still clutching a steamed bun. By the time they got her to the hospital, she was already gone. The doctor said it was a myocardial infarction—a heart attack.

I knelt by her bed and took her hand. It was ice-cold, the joints enlarged, the fingers covered in calluses and cracks. Those were the hands of someone who had labored for thirty-three years.

I cried until I couldn't speak.

After the funeral arrangements were settled, I began to clear out her belongings. She had very little: a few old clothes, a stack of enamel basins, a twenty-year-old pressure cooker, and that old canvas bag.

I opened the bag. Inside was her ID, the three hundred yuan, her keys, and that letter.

The letter was written in ballpoint pen on a school notebook. The handwriting was shaky and distorted; some parts were blurred, as if soaked by water—I realized later they were tear stains.

I sat on her bed and opened it.

The letter wasn't long, but I stared at it for a long time. Every word was like a nail driven into my heart.

The letter was for me.

She wrote: Son, the thing I regret most in this life, the way I failed you most, was not letting you go to a good high school.

I was stunned. I had attended an ordinary county high school, but I had never thought there was anything wrong with that.

She continued:

The year you graduated from junior high, you actually placed into the City No. 1 High School. That’s the best school in the city. Your teacher came to the house specifically to tell me. He said you had great grades and that if you studied there, you'd have no problem getting into a top university.

But your father died early, and we had nothing. The tuition at the city school was high, and you would have had to board there. With all the miscellaneous fees, my entire month's salary wouldn't have been enough. I had no choice. I really had no choice.

I didn't let you go. I made you go to the ordinary school in the county. I kept this from you for thirty years.

For thirty years, I told no one. Every time you asked why you didn't go to school in the city, I said the county school was closer and more convenient. You believed me, and you never complained.

But I couldn't move past it. Every night for thirty years, I thought about it. I thought about what your teacher said, I thought about that admission notice, and I thought about you studying at the county school.

I hated myself for being so useless. I hated that I couldn't provide for you.

When you got into university later, I cried for a whole night out of joy. I thought, "Good, I haven't ruined him after all." But I still couldn't get over that hurdle. I kept wondering: if you had gone to the city school, would you have gone to an even better university? Would your life be better than it is now?

Son, your mother had no great skills; I just stayed by you for thirty-three years. I didn't find those years bitter. Truly, having you was enough for me. But I never dared tell you this. I was afraid you would blame me, hate me, or say I held you back.

I'm writing this now because I feel my body getting weaker by the day. I’m afraid that if I leave suddenly, these words will rot in my stomach.

Son, don't blame your mother. I am sorry.

At the end of the letter, she wrote one final line, pressing so hard the pen nearly tore the paper:

"The person I owe the most to in this life is you."

When I finished the letter, my whole body was shaking.

I clutched that piece of paper, tears falling until the letter was soaked. I crouched on the floor, covering my face, sobbing until I couldn't breathe.

My mother. My own mother.

She kept that secret for thirty years. She thought I would blame her, hate her, or feel she had held me back.

But what she didn't know was...

She provided my food, my clothes, my education, my university. She remained a widow for thirty-three years without a single cry of bitterness or a word about her hardships. She lived her life like an ox—eating grass and giving blood.

How could she possibly feel she owed me?

It is I who owe her.

I was the one who didn't notice her illness sooner. I was the one who didn't come back to see her more often. I was the one who believed every "I'm doing great." I was the one who lived my life comfortably, leaving her alone in that old house.

Thirty-three years. More than twelve thousand days and nights. When she was gluing boxes under that fifteen-watt bulb, what was I doing? When she was hauling sand at construction sites, what was I doing? When she spent New Year’s alone with a steamed bun and a bowl of pickles, what was I doing?

She was feeling a debt to me.

And I didn't even know she was sick.

I tucked the letter into my inner pocket. I walked into her kitchen. The stove was scrubbed clean; the pots and pans were neatly arranged. On the counter was a small dish of pickles covered in plastic wrap—the ones she’d made herself.

She had used that stove for thirty-three years.

I opened the fridge. There was a bowl of leftover porridge, two steamed buns, and half a head of cabbage. In the egg tray on the door, eight eggs were lined up perfectly.

Eight eggs. She couldn't even bring herself to eat an extra egg.

I closed the fridge and stood in that tiny kitchen, looking around. On the wall was a photo of me as a child, yellowed and curling at the edges. I was maybe five or six, wearing overalls and grinning ear to ear.

Next to the photo, pinned with a thumbtack, was a slip of paper with a few words on it:

"My son lost his father at three; I must raise him."

The handwriting was shaky—her handwriting.

I reached out to touch the note. The paper was brittle and crumbled at my touch. It had been there for who knows how many years; she must have seen it every day while she cooked.

That was her vow. She kept it for thirty-three years.

I knelt in that kitchen, on the very tiles where she stood every day to cook. I pressed my forehead against the cold floor, my body racking with spasms of grief.

Mom, listen to me.

You never owed me anything.

That city school—it doesn't matter that I didn't go. My life now is good, really good. I have a job, a home, food, and warmth. Everything I have, you gave to me.

It was bought with thirty-three years of your youth, sewn together stitch by stitch, and illuminated by the light of a fifteen-watt bulb.

You raised me. You did it.

You don't owe anyone anything.

It is I who owe you. I owe you a debt I can never repay in this lifetime.

I burned her letter in the enamel basin she used to use. The ashes rose like grey butterflies, circling the room a few times before settling on the floor.

I brought her ashes home and placed them on the bed where she had slept for thirty-three years. I left them there for one night, sleeping beside her just as I did when I was a child.

I talked to her all night long. I talked about things from my childhood, about my work, and about the things in my heart I’d never told anyone.

I don't know if she could hear me. But I had to say them.

The next day, I buried her ashes next to my father’s grave. After thirty-three years, they were finally together again.

I kowtowed three times before the grave, stood up, and brushed the dirt from my knees.

As I was leaving, I looked back one last time. The earth on the grave was still fresh; the paper flowers nearby swayed gently in the wind.

The sun was beautiful, shining warmly on the hillside.

I suddenly remembered what she wrote: "The person I owe the most to in this life is you."

Mom, you were wrong.

The person who owes the most in this life is me.

I burned that letter, but I haven't forgotten a single word.

"Son, the thing I regret most in this life... was not letting you go to a good high school."

Mom, you didn't know. What you gave me was worth so much more than a good high school.

So much more.