Say Yes
The last television drama my mother and I watched together aired in the summer when I returned home from the U.S. after finishing my sophomore year of college. It was a love story about loss and second chances.
Every semester I was away, she recorded television programs for me — drama series, sometimes a comedy special.
Often, she called my dorm in Florida from a hospital payphone.
“Sora, I am taping everything for you. We can watch it together when you are back. I am counting the days.”
Beep, beep, beep. Then the line would cut off as the phone card ran out.
Watching dramas together became our routine whenever I came home. They were not always my taste, but I watched. It kept us in one room as her health deteriorated.
When I landed that summer, my stepfather picked me up from the airport. As the car drove onto our street, I saw a thin middle-aged man standing outside our house, waving and smiling at me.
“Sora, Sora!”
Get Sora Lane’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The person wore a blue-and-navy striped Adidas T-shirt, the same one my mother had worn the winter she sent me off to America. I only recognized her from the shirt and voice. I wanted to cry when I saw her. Instead, I swallowed it and said,
“Mommy, you look great.”
She could no longer climb the stairs to her bedroom. An IV line rested in her neck, sometimes in her arm. A hospital bag was always fully packed. I could not allow myself to be sad. I was the mother now: cooking, cleaning, watching my sister, who was fifteen, and my brother, four.
We watched the taped drama episodes in the living room every night. The curtains were drawn against the heat. The old television hummed. For the next few weeks, we binge-watched, inserting one tape after another.
The theme song was called Say Yes. I do not know whether it was written specifically for the series, but I recall the soaring melody. Recently, out of nostalgia, I began listening to it again on Spotify.
The melody returns me to that living room. We lay a mattress on the floor as a makeshift bed. I remember her hospital-scented pajamas and the way she looked at me — her eyes lined with fine red veins from exhaustion, still steady and loving.
She died a few months later.
I have never rewatched the series since.
I do not even remember the title.
I remember the song.
“Say Yes.”
