mini art journal challenge: week 15

This week's prompt: "Your parents".
Well, as the story goes, they met, fell in love, had babies... Yes they did, and at the time it was quite an achievement: My mum's french (born in the French West indies) and my dad's chinese (born in Hong Kong). They met in England, while they were both spending a year there to study english. Then my mum moved to Hong Kong, a bold move in the pre-internet/ cheap flights years. They lived there about 7 years I think, had me and my brother, then divorced and we moved to France with my mum. We saw my dad during the school holidays and spent a month every summer in Hong Kong while we were kids. Not your typical family, but not out of the ordinary when we were growing up and certainly not now!
So I wanted to base this card around my mother, mainly because she brought us up really and because I owe her so much. I would have hated to be told this in my rebellious teenage years, but I probably resemble her more than I realize and I am so glad.
She is a strong woman who raised two kids on her own with a full time job, never seemed to complain and did everything she could to make us happy (even dump her at the time boyfriend!). I admire her drive and dedication to us, am grateful she raised us well, with strong values and a sense of honor and independence.
She was always open to our desires and ambitions and always respected our choices. She is a person who does not judge, accepts people as they are and a faithful friend.
My friends at school used to be scared of her, because she seemed so strict. She's only little, but still managed to make a strong impression on them! I was never a model teenage daughter, even pretty angry at times, but I understand now that her reaction was just her way of showing me she worried for me.
Now, the interesting thing about our family, is that my brother and I have followed the same pattern as my parents did: we both got involved with partners that come from far away. My brother is happily married to a beautiful chinese woman and I am living here in New Zealand with my kiwi lover and our son.
As hard as I find it now to live far away from friends and family, I can't imagine what my mum must have felt like at times, while living in Hong Kong. At the time, the only two ways to keep in touch with loved ones back in France would have been writing letters and phone calls (and the quality was very poor). Buying a plane ticket was outrageously expensive (although it seems to be heading that way again).
Anyway, here's my card of the week:

So the flower represents my mum (!), and the background is a piece with chinese writing on it (taken from a chinese calendar) that represents my dad. It's quite cheesy but since I had no decent photo of them to stick on the card, that's the best I could come up with! I wrote some more cheesy stuff in french about them.