“May, do you remember why we Chinese people eat noodles on birthdays?” I ask my little sister as we gather around the dinner table and sit down. I drum my fingers on the red tablecloth as I wait for her adorable nine year old voice to deliver an answer, the simple percussion of my fingers adding to the symphony of other sounds coming from the kitchen.
May bounces enthusiastically in her seat and nearly shouts the answer over the clanging of pots and pans, sizzling oil, the whirring of the kitchen exhaust hood, and the quiet but noticeable voices of my mama and grandma floating out of the battlefield like kitchen. “We eat noodles because they are long! And long noodles represent long life! And long life is good!” She stops bouncing, sits still, folds her hands neatly in her lap, and smiles at me, waiting for my approval.
I smile back at her. “That’s right. Now come here so I can give you a birthday hat.” She claps her hands happily and weaves from the other side of the table towards my end. She’s dressed in a long sleeve tee-shirt and pajama pants, both in red, the color of fortune and happiness. I take the small red flower out of her silky long hair and put the colorful paper birthday hat over her head.
“Gege, big brother” she says, pointing at the other birthday hat. “I want to put that birthday hat on your head!”
“Ah but May,” I say, taking the hat out of her reach. “I only have two hats, and this one is for grandma. Besides, it’s her birthday.” I put her small red flower in my hair and smile. “Also, I think I look much better with the flower. Don’t you?” I bat my eyelashes dramatically, trying my best to look as pretty as an 18 year old dude with facial hair can be.
She squeals with laughter and snatches the flower out of my hair as mama and grandma come to the table, each of them carrying two steaming bowls of heaven.
“Aiya! May, be careful!” mama scolds. “Can’t you see nainai and I are bringing food? If you run around so much, you’ll make us spill it!” May plops back into her seat, pouting.
“Oh Fei, take it easy on the child,” grandma says, her eyes squinting with laughter, the wrinkles on her face dancing and scrunching together into a face that makes her look older in appearance, but younger in spirit. “Let her use up as much of that bottled up energy as she can before she becomes old like me.” She kisses May on the forehead and May immediately sits back up, smiling again.
Mom blows a stray strand of hair from her face and sits down, passing out chopsticks to each of us. She’s shaking her head, but smiling as well. Grandma’s laughter seems to have that kind of effect on people. “Ok, ok, let’s all eat now.”
Grandma puts on her birthday hat and marvels at the noodles. “We did a great job making this meal today Fei. I’m sure it’ll be delicious.” Mama beams with pride and we wait for grandma to take the first slurp of her birthday noodles.
“Wahhh,” she begins. “This tastes absolutely”
And then suddenly she is on the floor, clutching her heart. The bowl shatters on the floor. Soup soaks the carpet. Noodles flail around on the ground like worms. Her birthday hat is soiled. Our screams our amplified by the otherwise silence of the night.

The doctors tell us that she died of a heart attack, even though she never showed any signs of a decaying health. Mama is silent the whole time in the hospital. May is sobbing during the ride home and eventually falls asleep in my arms, sniffling and stammering in that rhythmic sniff sniff sniff sigh, sniff sniff sniff sigh way. When I lay her in bed, I put the flower back in her hair. As I head downstairs to start cleaning up the ruined dining room, I pass mama’s bedroom and find her face down on the side of her mattress, her legs sprawled to one side on the ground, her arms wrapped beneath her forehead. The moonlight shines down on her rapidly rising and falling back and I can hear a muffled sniff escape from her airtight shield from the world. I see a bottle of half empty liquor on her nightstand.

That was one month ago. Mama has not recovered since. The last time I saw her so depressed was when my father passed away in a car accident back when she was still pregnant with May. All she does now is root herself in the couch during the day, watching whatever crap is on TV, and then falling asleep in the couch at night. Once in a while she wanders the house aimlessly like a vagrant ghost. She never says a word to us anymore, and I became the mother of the house. I do the laundry, drive May to school, and cook (although I’m no good at it) for May, and leave the food at the couch for mom, which I clean up every night untouched.
May no longer glows like she used to.
My grades have dropped.
And she just sits there in dead, morose silence. Sometimes, I wonder if she’s passed on into eternal sleep too.
Today is mama’s birthday. It’s time to make the noodles of life.

May and I are kitchen clad in white aprons, and both of us don birthday hats. We are going to make noodles and make them right. We laugh and toss cold noodles at each other and fence with chopsticks. She pretends to be Wonder Woman by using the skillet as a shield. I do the same, only as Captain America. It takes us five hours of not so very focused cooking to finish a single bowl of noodles for mama.
We emerge from the battlefield with a steaming bowl of heaven and approach the couch that has swallowed up my mother. Her eyes are glazed over and we have to poke her for her to notice us.
“Happy birthday mama,” we say in unison and gingerly place the tray with the bowl of noodles brimming with shrimp, tomatoes, and soup in her lap. We insert a spoon into her dead frozen hands.
She looks down at the bowl and whispers “Why are the noodles so short?”
May and I had cut the noodles all into two inch long segments. They no longer look like the golden locks of a goddess, but rather a sea of many young tadpoles.
“Mama,” I begin. “We eat long noodles on birthdays because we want to live a long life. But we know life is short. Dad’s life was short. Grandma’s life was not long enough. Your life may also be short. Why do we deceive ourselves into thinking that life is long? So that we can waste it away into nothing? No. This is a reminder that life is short, and since it is short, it is important to live it to its fullest and without regret.”
“Short noodles also easier to eat,” May says, smiling.
Mama doesn’t look at us. She’s still staring at the short noodles. A tear drops into the soup as she eats a spoonful. She looks up, smiling for the first time in a month and says “The shrimp is overcooked.”
She eases herself out of the couch, the leather imprint of her body slowly returning to its original form, and leads us into the kitchen to teach us how to cook shrimp correctly.
That night we gather around the dinner table for the first time since grandma’s birthday, each of us with a bowl of short noodles. We make two extra bowls to put where grandma and dad used to sit and I imagine the steam of the savory broth floating into the heavens where the two of them have gathered to celebrate mama’s birthday.

The next day I go downstairs to find mama and May at the front door. Mama has showered, combed her hair, applied makeup, and has dressed herself in the sharp business suit that has been collecting dust in her closet for the past month. She opens the door and drives us to school. On my way out the car, she grabs my hand, pulls me in, and hugs me. A hint of light perfume and shampoo. An even lighter smell of overcooked shrimp and short noodles.