I hated my mother. She had no nose, while I had one with beautiful shape. She was such an insult and embarrassment to me at school, at market and at every place. My mother ran a small provision shop at a market. She use to purchase things and resell then for all the money we needed and I tell you Gosh she was really a big big embarrassment to me. One day during my school days I remember that it to be field day, and my mother came. I was damn so ashamed and embarrassed. How could she ever do this to me? I gave her a hateful look and ran out of the school compound. The next day at the school..."Doesn't your mother have a nose! She is looking like a horror, like a decaying leprosy patient!" and these irritating comments haunted me throughout that day. I wished and prayed that my mother would just disappear from this world so I said to my mother, "Mom, why should you move around without a nose at all? You are only going to make me a laughingstock. Why don't you just disappear away from this world?" She did not respond or utter a word. I guess she felt a little bad, but at the same time, it felt good to think that I had said at this time what I always wanted to say. Maybe it was because my mother had not punished me, but I did not feel a bit that I had hurt her feelings so very badly. That night...I suddenly woke up, and went to the kitchen to have a glass of water. My mother was crying there, so quietly, as if she was afraid that her sobs might wake me up. I took a look at her, and then turned away. Because of the thing I had said to her earlier, there was something pinching at me in the corner of my heart. Even so, I hated my mother who was crying out and there was no nose for her to wipe it. So I told myself that I would grow up and become successful, because I hated my mother and our desperate poverty. Then I studied really hard. I left my mother and went to the capital city and studied, and got absorbed in a big job with all the confidence that I had. Then, I got married. I bought a house of my own. I had kids, too. Now I am living happily as a successful man. I like it here because its a place that does not remind me of my mother anymore. This happiness was getting bigger and bigger, when someone unexpected came to see me "What?! Who's this?!" ...Err it was the one I hated the most, my mother...still without a nose featuring on her wrinkled face. It felt as if the whole sky was falling apart on me. My little daughter and son ran away, scared of my mother's appearance. She was with all greyed hair and shabby clothes and why my children, I myself did not like her appearance!! And I asked her, "Who are you? I don't know you!!!" as if I tried to make that sound more real. I yelled at her "How dare a beggar come inside of my house and scare my daughter! Now get out of here I do not have anything to give you!!!" And to this, my mother quietly answered, "Oh, I'm so sorry dear. I may have been wrongly guided here." She disappeared. Thank God... she did not recognize me. I was quite a relieved man. I told myself that I was not going to care, or think about this for the rest of my life anyway. One day I received a letter regarding a school alumnus reunion. I lied to my family saying that I was going on a business trip and left to attend the alumnus reunion. After the reunion, I went down to the old hut, that I use to call a house...just out of curiosity. There, I found my mother fallen on the bare ground. I did not make me shed a single tear. She had a piece of paper in her hand.... it was a letter addressed to me. The letter read like this My dearest son I think my life has been long enough now. And. I will not visit the capital anymore... but would it be too much to ask if I wanted you to come visit me once in a while? Because my dear I miss you so much. I was so glad when I heard you were coming for the school reunion. But I decided not to come to the school.... For you... I am sorry that I had to live without a nose and remember that I was a big embarrassment for you. You see, when you were very little, you got into a terrible accident, where your face became a paste and you lost your small nose and the doctors said that they have no choice but to leave you without a nose and as a mother, I could not stand watching you having to grow up without a nose... so I gave you mine.... I was never upset at it but was very happy that you looked pretty with that piece. I was also not unhappy for anything you did. The couple of times that you were angry with me, I thought to myself, 'its because he loves me.' I miss the times when you were still young around me. I miss you so much dear. I love you. You mean the world to me. My world started to shatter into pieces!! And I cried for the person who lived and died for me. MY LOVING MOTHER.