Hello everybody! I am fourteen years old and my name is Erica. I want to tell you the story about my experience with an unusual lifestyle that my mother made me live in. And I’ll say right away – do not even try to repeat what I was doing for the past few years! My life was in serious danger, and everything could've ended up very badly ... Although you still can’t say that everything ended well. I am alive and that's a plus. But I’m not sure whether my mother still loves me or not.And I really love my mother. Yes, she has a bad temper and pretty specific tastes... but she is my mother! And she never wanted to hurt me. She just put me on a diet. Even if I added that this was absolutely against my will, it still wouldn’t sound too scary, right? That's what I thought too, and I never really rebelled against it, because my mother adhered to this diet herself. And, you see, I thought that it was pretty fair.
Although at night I often dreamed... of potatoes. Mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, fries - I really loved all of these things, but I was strictly forbidden to eat potatoes. And I couldn’t even dream of eating a steak, a cutlet, or a chicken leg - because I did not even know what they tasted like. Can you imagine? I have only recently discovered the taste of meat dishes.But I will get to this later.
My mother became seriously concerned, if not obsessed, about nutrition after my dad died. I was three years old and, of course, I do not remember the details. I only know that he died from appendicitis. This illness is not commonly considered lethal, if properly treated, but that didn't happen in my father’s case... He didn’t have time to do the surgery, his inflamed appendix burst and... well, you see, something terrible happened inside my father’s body. Doctors could not save him. They stated that the reason for his death was that my dad didn't seek medical help until it was already too late. But my mother was sure that this clinic did not provide assistance to her husband in time!My father’s death was a real tragedy for my mother. But instead of becoming depressed, my mother put all her strength into taking revenge on the clinic for his death. She went to court. The trials were complicated and lasted almost a year, but my mother and her lawyer managed to bring evidence proving the negligent attitude of the doctors! One of my earliest childhood memories includes this courtroom and a stern middle-aged lady in a black mantle, loudly issuing a verdict, and then even louder, banging the table with a hammer. And then I saw my mother’s broad, satisfied smile. I rarely saw my mother's smile, so I also remembered seeing her smiling especially clearly.
My mother received a generous check from the clinic as compensation. I don’t know exactly how much money there was. I can only say one thing: this money allowed my mother and I to go to the countries of Southeast Asia and to stay there for several years. First we went to Cambodia, but we didn’t stay there long, so I have almost no memories of this country, then we lived in Thailand, briefly visited Nepal, but the mountain climate seemed too cold for my mom, and after that, we went to India and spent two years in the different states of this country.
We didn’t live in expensive hotels and didn’t eat in restaurants for tourists; my mother wanted something completely different. She wanted us to live very simply and to eat the most traditional foods. Actually, my mother started this whole journey in order to study the food culture in these countries. She was interested in everything related to vegetarianism. It was this kind of nutrition that seemed the healthiest and, therefore, the most proper to my mom. She became obsessed with these ideas after my father’s death – she equally blamed the clinic... and my dad himself.
Dad was a real fan of fast food - in his bachelor years he never cooked and bought food that could be eaten quickly: hamburgers, French fries or chips, deep-fried chicken legs or wings. He also really loved Cola. And even after their marriage, dad did not really change his habits, preferring fast food to any homemade food. Mom believed that his appetite for fast food resulted in him having appendicitis, which finally killed him.
Well, as you might have guessed, from the age of four I ate exclusively fruits and vegetables. While we lived in Asia, it was not so bad, because there were so many kinds! But our money was gradually running out, and I had to go to school, so we soon returned to the States.
At home, my mother continued to very strictly monitor that I remained a vegetarian. 文本并非一一对应，且不完整，仅供参考阅读