Beams of sunlight, filtered through the clouds in Tyndall streaks, scatter across the beach and the sea, reflecting a paradise-like glow.

I love the sea—truly, deeply love it.

In my memory, my mom once took me to Qingdao when I was in elementary school, all because a company rep invited her on a business trip. As the sun began to set, tiny me sat at the edge where sand met seawater, gazing far into the distance. My mom said the tour group was leaving, that we couldn’t stay any longer. I said, “Mom, I just want to see the sea a little more.”

Maybe it was because, before I was born, I had heard the sound of the waves in Hainan, echoing from within her.

I remember my mom later telling me that, in that moment, she really wished she could let me stay and look at the sea just a little longer. The sea truly was beautiful.

In my childhood memories, my mom was always close yet distant, gentle yet untouchable. We spent, in total, perhaps two or three years together—ten minutes each day. But she was truly beautiful.

I loved the way she walked, lifting herself on her toes like a fawn, and I loved how she’d turn ordinary phrases into carefree songs. She was my mother, an angel, the dream forever out of reach. As a child, I’d cry myself to sleep each night from missing her, my pillow soaked through, and every day I’d linger by the landline, waiting for that rare monthly call. I spent five long years waiting, only to finally hear that neither she nor my father would ever return. I never thought about how to face the future; I just became a guardian angel of sorts, carefully piecing together fragments of two shattered families. I poured tea, offered water, and listened as the people I cared about most used the most hurtful words to describe the other people I cared about most. And then they would blame me for loving the person they despised most.

One day, Ms. Lin asked me why I knew how to massage, why I’d learned to knead both hands and feet. I told her I’d done it a lot as a kid and, blankly, I asked her, “Don’t your parents tell you every day how tired, how sore they feel, and ask you to do things like that for them?”

She didn’t know how to respond.