My Mother

        

At the KJG Home off Jalan Templar

 It’s most unlikely that everyone will live an unusual life. Circumscribed by circumstances, most  face dull mundane days throughout their life-time. From time to time, we will  face bouts of adversity...episodal situations – seemingly trying circumstances. How one overcomes them will shape our lives. My mother is such a mortal. Living from one situation to another and overcoming them in the best way she could. 

         Instinctively maternal and protective of her brood, that she was! Yet, like most Asian Chinese women, she would, taboo-like, be afraid to openly display her affections and emotions. As always, as if its DNA pre-designed, Chinese mothers mainly show genuine love ...only through their caring deeds! Otherwise, they would mostly  appear..unsmiling and unbelievably stoic as displayed in those staid old flaking portraits dangling  forlornly on wooden walls.. 

        I cannot say my mother is an unusual or extraordinary woman. Far from it. In the general sense of greatness that we are used to: she is no icon...no Mother Theresa ...with hardly any significant or colossal achievement to boast of. My feelings for her, as such, is contextually my own, of a private relationship between mother and son. It’s never for the telling...for that medium will always fail us.....falling short of the more critical aspect of ...feeling, the one true emotion that will never lie!

As epitomised by my mother, how she lived and what she did.

        My mother, like most Chinese mothers led a rather  solitary life..... eking out  a meagre living as best as she could, for our family..Our circumstances were personal to ourselves, living off on the British plantations of Malaya of yore....now lost to forgotten time.

        She had 8 children, perhaps aborting one or two fetuses due to "over-straining" ... carrying more weight than was necessary when she was pregnant. She left for work before dawn.  As children, we hardly see our mother.  If it rains that morning, then she would not go out to tap. and then she would help us to quickly get to school, preparing breakfast as best as she could. 

        My mother showed a high degree of discipline. She stayed committed to her task and in bringing back  her share of the wages for our family upkeep. She tapped her trees, ever carefully not to cut beyond the bark. She had indeed honed her art to perfection and possibly, as a reward for her precision tapping, she was always allocated better parcels of trees to tap. Except for Sunday if she did not tap, we all went to church. She was semi-literate and could barely read the Chinese vernacular newspapers. I do not believe she knew too much of the Bible either but she was forever fervent of her love for Christ as her way to salvation. 

      It was her endeavor to attempt to read  that imbibed in me the same passion for reading. Though she was to play only a peripheral role in my education, she did all she could to ensure that we had new school uniforms and wearable shoes when school opens for any year. Yes, there were times when we had little choice but to  wear those old hand-me-downs from my big brother and to wear his over-sized school shoes ..so loose..that they easily dangled off my tiny feet. I clearly remembered how she fussily made it a point to ensure that we had our bottles of black coffee tightly capped. Yet, despite all her efforts and good intentions, many a  time, while scampering up to get seats on the bus, the school bag will be squashed causing the coffee  to spill out of the bottle, staining my extra large work books.

       My mother taught me honesty. Tappers have many tricks up their sleeves to earn more money. As a tapper, my mother could have easily diluted the latex with water from nearby streams to cheat on its liquid weight. If you are found out ,woe betide, you will get a lower pricing for the latex. Lower grade latex contains more water and will summarily be given a lower price rate.

       “You know....she talks to herself a lot at night,” her room-mate at the KJG Home told me. She is now being placed at this this home on Templar Road. Apart from having a mild stroke, my mother has evidently taken a fall, some three weeks ago.  Only she knew about it.... before the bone scan  done at Sungai Buluh Hospital was  to confirm a fracture  on L1 of her spine. Despite the stoic façade she exhibits, my mother has her weak spots. She is “very complaining”, and showed signs of difficulty of adjustment to the Home. 

         She waited impatiently for the clock to tick to 12.30 pm. That’s her lunch time. She vigorously massaged both of her thighs. She looked at her frail looking hands....bones and skin...weak... her mind wandered back into the past........

         It’s 11 am and time to collect the latex from the earthen cups. She had strength. The chores quickly done, she cleaned the pails and heaved two large pails of foaming latex onto two sturdy metal hooks welded  to both sides of her bicycle. Then, like a spring, she was on the old  bicycle making for the factory. Mostly, if I was helping her, I would tread behind carrying the empty pails and her tapping knives.

        My mother is a very driven person. Very focused. Very demanding. Exacting. Procedural..yes that she was. That's her way! I saw industry in the person of my mother. I was to inherit most of her traits...both good and bad. Looking back, I must admit.. I do take to work like a mad person...like a duck to water. I was a perfectionist in my thoughts, stubborn just like my mother.. I followed her character traits almost to a T....always laying out the best laid plans. In reality, the result was always short of my high expectations.  Just like it was for my mother. I guess that’s life. Maybe life is such a bitch! I never really did  well in most public examinations; as much as I was wont to burn the midnight oil... At the university, I was marks away from an Upper...  In civil service..  I was one of those who wouldn't make it up the rung. There was no top for me. Ziglar may be there...not me...Success has been elusive.

      What did my mother stand for in life? Life to her was also a bitch! Yet she persevered.  From hand to mouth. From desperately making withdrawals of her savings account to pawning her family jewels to help my father make ends meet for the family every month!. That’s long suffering... Yes, Mother’s life was mostly long suffering....

       Was she bitter, sitting on her bed at the Home? Angry at her situation,she must have felt useless. Where are all those children she bore? Just to appeal to them to come and visit her has now has become a deafening ordeal. Some days,the son did come. At other times,... the son in law. Where are her daughters? Yes, Shaline passed on. So did Donnie...Both, gone before her..both from sickness. She looked at herself and recalled..the many times she would have also gone.. gone for good.

      The hall went dark. There was a thud on the floor. She was later to be told she fell like a ton of bricks onto the cement floor. That sound could be heard by our next door neighbours! A lightning bolt. The electric iron she was using to iron the children's school uniforms was short-circuited. The electric shock went through her body. Death by electrocution?

      There was a scream from someone. The neighbours, alerted, ran towards the sound. Somebody ran to alert to estate dresser. The doorway was crowded as the dresser pushed through the nosy crowd to examine her. He did some first aid on her; lifting both her hands and then both her legs in quick succession in earnest fashion.. Repeatedly with unusual vigour....The crowd watched in hopelessness. They then saw her body stirred. My mother coughed and slowly started to regain consciousness.

      What an ordeal!  Her husband ran back from the mill. He hugged the dresser and held his wife's dainty hands as she looked at him in recognition. There was a burnt scar on her palm. Slowly, she got up. Her husband then went before the portrait of Jesus, looking over the home, ever placid in His glorious gaze. His outstretched hands in an  anointing stance. . Her husband cried aloud and thanked the Almighty Father for saving his wife....She recalled from the dark recess of her mind.....She should have died...

        Is my mother fatalistic...? Waiting for the faiths to decide her days to come? The television was rather loud. Scenes of Indian dances and songs was playing on the TV screen. "Why has God kept me all through these years?" she wondered.

 Then, all of a sudden, she remembered that near fatal mishap near Bahau as she was journeying to see her husband, transferred to Air Kuning on the Malacca-Negeri Sembilan border. Half of my then family was in the car. I was there too. Machan, our friendly Indian uncle was driving. We paid him about 50 dollars to fetch us to Air Kuning for that day trip.

     Suddenly, there was a bang! The car went into a circle....it spun a few times across the zagged road. At if by God's hand, it did not turnd turtle. It then careened towards a ravine but stop short at the ledge on the road shoulder. Machan,recoverign from  the shock, crept out of the car gingerly. He shook his head from side to side. The car was caught on a strand of roots which stopped and held the car in place,preventing it from plunging into the dark ravine! Machan beckoned us to slowly moved out from the car. Why didn't she die then with her family members? God is kind....she still had a future to live on for.....

      There were red letter days in the family. Some good and some still controversial. She earned bouquets and she earned brickbats. She endeared some, she is still despised by others. She faintly remembered the children's weddings and marriages. Her husband is a Hainanese. The family was steeped in tradition. No sons or daughters could marry outside the Hainanese clan.  The eldest son..he was malleable. He was to take her husband's advice to marry a seamstress from Merlimau. Who said arranged marriages wouldn't work? It did for her son. A year later, she became grandma.

       The next few marriages of her two other children , however, did not get their parent's blessings. My elder sister married a Teochew was was summarily disowned. My two younger brother got married within the year. One married a Hainanese and the parents paid for his wedding luncheon. The other, married another Teochew and was not fully supported. There was no grand wedding lunch. They had to be satisfied with some home cooked meal to cater for the wedding lunch. My brother was furious and they parted ways with my family for some countless years! She recalled...and a few drops of tears emanated from her old tired bleary eyes. Was she a good parent to have done such injustices to her children..to pick and choose who is to be  blessed and who shouldn't ?

Then she recalled the other red letter days. The graduation of her two children. Both at University Sains Malaysia. Perhaps, revenue was too important in those days. To forgo it would perhaps cause cash-flow problems for the family.  She chose not to attend as it was also too far-away in Penang. At that time, my mother operated a small licensed ship from the house selling food and drinks to the mill workers at breakfast and at lunch time. She began to feel hollow inside. Was business so important then to forgo these milestone events? Shouldn't she and her husband have taken leave of their business just for a short spell, to celebrate those two happy occasions? She look down at her soft hands...and softly weep. There were regrets in her life.....now she has to come to terms ..to slowly accept them....

         Most of us will live life according to our own station in life. The play upon the cards dealt out by the Gods above.....Success does not necessarily lead to happiness.We take in both the good and bad in living everyday.  That will also be our own stories to tell in time.....

         My mother's story will still be there in her mind as she recalls and recollects at the KJG Home for all posterity..as she looks forward to all the  rest of her days of her life on Planet Earth...A brief moment in time....How fast indeed 87 years had passed!  For the moment, we just pray that our comings and goings will be blessed. All our journeys be God-protected. To see our children prospering in their careers...To watch every sunshine at the break of day. To be blessed until all our days are evenly spent..