CHAPTER 142

2026-04-01

My late mother could never forget the daughter who died young. After moving into a care home, she “adopted” nearly ten dolls, one after another.

Among her belongings were several dolls—her adopted sons and daughters during the sixty-three months she lived in the nursing home. In fact, there were more than these; some went missing along the way. Altogether, there must have been no fewer than ten.

Some may have been gifts from visitors; others she might have taken—without asking—from shared areas or from the rooms of residents in the same wing. Once, she even held a doll and struck the arm of its owner to keep “others” from taking away her “child.”

After that, the notice posted beside her room door changed color and carried stronger warnings. We no longer worried that she might be bullied.

In truth, many residents were mentally impaired and could not clearly distinguish which room belonged to whom. Dolls would appear and disappear from time to time—just like the unpredictability of life.

My mother treated the dolls as real. Sometimes I would place one on top of a slightly open wardrobe door, pretending it was about to jump down, or make the dolls “fight” each other—just enough to startle her, though never causing real harm.

In fact, both my father and mother could never forget their daughter, Chan Oi-ling, who passed away. She was one year younger than I. In those years, my parents struggled to support the family while caring for four young children—aged six, five, three, and not yet two. Even with all their effort, they could not keep their only daughter. My father often sighed that he had not left behind even a single photograph of her, though he also said that perhaps this spared them some of the pain of being constantly reminded.

My mother’s grief, however, was deeply etched. Only in her later years did her longing begin to show.

The two large Caucasian dolls she adopted earliest were kissed so often that their cheeks revealed the gray-blue color of the plastic beneath. Their small mouths were always stuffed with food, and whenever I visited, I had to clean them out.

Another, smaller one with an oval face retained its rosy complexion no matter how much she was kissed—my mother loved her healthy glow. But her white cloth body was stained with soup, as she often accompanied my mother at meals. Eventually, the caregivers had to hide the doll so that my mother could focus on eating.

At the peak, there were seven dolls at once. When I visited, I would bring another and line them up on the windowsill—“eight stars bringing good fortune,” though in reality it was for sunning and disinfecting them. It felt like a big, happy family.

In early March 2023, on a Friday, my mother was diagnosed with COVID-19. She soon fell into a deep sleep, and four days later, on the evening of Tuesday, March 7, she passed away. She had been in Canada for exactly thirty-one years and lived to the age of ninety-two. The process was, thankfully, very peaceful.

Most of what she left behind were clothes, which, due to infection-control concerns, were largely discarded. But the dolls—her constant companions, always in her arms—we could not bear to throw them all away.

One doll, newly adopted and still in pristine condition, wore a pink vest and striped trousers, with a small crown around its bald head. My mother often held her, kissing her cheeks again and again. This doll even had a “pet”: a golden-horned, white plush horse, also clean and well-kept. The two of them accompanied my mother on her final journey.

The remaining dolls were to be dealt with by my brothers on the day of the funeral.

I chose two to keep as mementos: a pair of Black twin dolls, a boy and a girl. At first, my mother disliked their dark color, mistaking it for dirt. But over time, affection grew, and she kept them. They looked almost identical—the boy with a smaller mouth, dressed in light blue, and the girl in pink. Their heads, hands, and feet were made of soft plastic, while their bodies and limbs were cloth. Each was about a foot long; holding them felt like cradling an infant.

I keep them by my side now, in remembrance of my mother’s years in the nursing home.