I MISS YOU

I did 2 tests: "How much do you know Gloria? ","How much do you know Angela? ".
Then I created my own test, one of the questions was: whom do you like to meet most?

I miss her most.She is the one I want to meet most.

Vividly, she had big and deep eyes, sharp nose, though a bit big, nice lips, most of all, the high and protruding forehead( which I am inheriting now).

Wearing kebaya and sarong most of the time, she ate with hands, liked to eat hot spicy chillies. she hardly spoke Mandarin, but spoke liked a Malay,she spoke many dialects: Hockien, different Hakka, Hainanese, Teochew, and a bit of Hindi language. Very sociable, friends from all walks of life, mixed especially well with the Malays.

she used to bring me to weddings (including Malay weddings)and funerals. I came to know that she was very popular and helpful in managing the "white business" and "Red business" among the Chinese friends.

Once she brought me to an old lady's farm. The old lady reared many pigs, I saw how she cooked food for the swines. The smell of the food was awful.

She always canned us.(but my father never)

She was very thrifty. she picked boxes and thick card boards, folded them nicely, in exchanged with tofu, mee or kuehteow from noodle sellers.

she would buy 2 bundles of vegetables, split them into three, 2 to be sold to her Malay friends and the other bundle to be brought to her mother, my grandma in Alor Gajah.

I remembered she brought me to attend many Malay weddings.I liked all the wedding gifts like: small begs with eggs and flowers, handmade golden flowers, egg flowers,..............

she liked durians very much. Once I saw her squatting at a durian stall eating durians at the road side.
She bought durians for us to go with our rice. No such thing as balance diet, balance meal. She was uneducated, yet she made sure her children(my elder brothers and sisters) got good educations.

Because of the fruit pickle business we did, the juice of the kuini and bacang made her hands "black" literally. Even when she passed away, I could remembered her 2 black stained palms laying besides her dead body.

She liked to take photos. Every Chinese New Year, we would gathered at the photo studio, waiting patiently for my father to come out from his Mahjong games, just to put his butt on the chair for a five minute photo taking.

There are many more fond memories about her.

She passed away at the age of 41(or 42), 1963. I was 9 years old.

Since then, I missed her, I missed her bringing me to all the "white business and Red business", Malay weddings, ate Malay foods, met Malay friends.

I have never told her I love her. I never have the chance to tell her at all.

Everytime when I heard people singing "Mother's song", I just couldn't help but ache in my heart. Her death was a trauma to all my siblings, 11 of us. My youngest sister was 3. I don't know how well they took it, but I know I need healings.

she is the one and only one I want to meet most, not my husband, not my children, less my relatives.
I want to tell her I love her, I miss her. I miss her hugs.

I LOVE YOU, MOM