Mum-meries 7: Do you remember?

So Mother’s Day has come and gone for the year. It’s been a time for us to remember the contributions our mothers made, and sacrifices they endured, for us, their children. We’ve chosen this day to honour that and them, and to return some of the love they showered upon us all our lives.
Do you remember what you did about a week and a half ago to celebrate Mother’s Day? Well, as far as most people are concerned, my mother probably doesn’t.

So for this last Mum-mery of the season, I’d like to talk about memories. Specifically my mother’s. Some of you have written to or told me personally how nice it’s been to read these memories I have of my mother and so I thought it apt now instead to switch the focus around this time - to talk about my mother’s own memories instead.

Mum with some of her kids and grandkids

My mother has Parkinson’s and a form of dementia that is linked to it. Parkinson’s is a nervous system disorder that affects the motor system and diminishes the body’s ability to move. Dementia is a general term that refers to the mind’s reduced ability to collect, process, interpret and react to stimuli. Mum has both.

Few of her friends and family actually understand what she’s going through. For many, Mum’s inability to recognise them is a memory issue. “Oh she can’t remember me” or an intelligence issue - ‘second childhood’.

In layman’s language, the way Parkinson’s and Dementia work is simple. The body picks up stimuli - sight, sound, taste etc - and transmits these to the relevant part of the brain which processes them then sends a signal to another part of the brain so an appropriate response can be decided. When a response is decided, more signals then travel around so the relevant body parts can actually act out the required response. In a healthy person, all these signals get where they need to get with no problem. In a person with Parkinson’s or Dementia, the signals may simply never arrive where they need to be. And that’s all.

So in reality, Mum doesn’t have a Memory issue. When she sees you, the eyes pick up the stimuli but anywhere along the resulting journey, the signals that should elicit a ‘Hi, how are you?’ response get lost or scrambled. The visual stimuli may never tickle her sub-conscious mind to compare you to the database of faces she’s got stored in there. Or it may, but the resultant signal that transmits the ‘I know who this is’ message may never reach the the parts of the brain they need to get to. Or the signal arrives, but the response mechanism signal to make her smile and say ‘Hi” may not. And so on.

Rosemary helping Mum with Lo Hei during Chinese New Year

Mum with some of her grandchildren.

Does she recognise me, even on her ‘not-so-good days? I don’t know. She may, or she may not. That, however, is no reason to presume she does not. Or to treat her like a child.

Imagine that you could see and recognise people but somehow cannot react. You can’t get the words out, or respond with gestures or facial expressions even. How would you feel when people start talking to you, then get bored when you don’t respond and eventually turn away and talk to others instead? How would you feel if people started talking to you as if you were a child?

Understanding all this, I now interact with Mum a little differently than I did a year or so ago.

I speak with her almost like I would speak with anyone else. And because I just do not know at which point along the signal-journey our conversation ends, I now add little sign-posts too. This is something my sister Margaret, a nurse, taught me. I now reach out and touch my Mum more when I chat with her. I touch her hands or even pat her hair. One of the reasons is that even if my words don’t quite make it through, the touch may. So Mum knows we’re here and we care.

And isn’t that what Mother’s Day is really about?

Mum, we’re here and we care.

Mum-meries 6: Of Toys made from handkerchiefs

We are a family of 7 kids. My parents didn’t have high paying jobs and though we were never hungry or in great want, we also never had luxuries. Well, not many anyway.

I remember once, when I was in the midst of the chaos involved in ferrying 3 kids up to KL for the New Year or whatnot, talking with my Mum about travelling and holidays and family excursions. Struggling already with just the 3, I wondered aloud how she managed with the 7 of us when we went to the movies and so on. Her reply was short and simple ‘We never went out.’

I cast my mind back and realised she was right - I had not one recollection of us trooping off to the cinema or to some new attraction, much less a shopping mall. She explained that they just couldn’t afford to go out. They concentrated on the neccesities and though by the time I’d come along things were more settled, our holidays were simple affairs - Port Dickson with aunts, uncles and cousins who all shared a bungalow at the 3rd mile called Sandytide being an example - and if I was taken along to the movies, it would be with one of my brothers.

My Dad used to take the boys off to the East Coast during the school holidays and I remember those with affection too but there was only one time I travelled long distance with my mother.

I must have been just 3 or 4 years old and it’s one of my earliest memories now. My father had gone to Penang and I think it was for an Orchid show. For some reason Mum decided to take me there too by train. I have a brief recollection of an unpainted-steel train parked at night at what must have been the main station in KL. Mum and I shared the top bunk of the sleeper and I recall too looking out onto the corridor and seeing the rows of bunks. There was a group of young men travelling together just a little ways down and Irecall two of the men sitting on their lower bunks and talking across the aisle. One of their friends was on the upper bunk and I watched fascinated as he hopped across to the facing top bunk without descending to the floor.

My Mum pulled me back in and we drew the curtains though the conversational noise continued to come through.

Smetime later, I was still awake and Mum took out a handkerchief, then knotted it here and there and suddenly in her hands was a little doll, a toy man. We played with it for some time and though the intervening 45+ years has blurred the memories, I can still see her hands holding the arms of this toy man she’d made, manipulating them and I have a visual recollection of her mouth moving, making toy man noises, no doubt, though the sounds have been lost to the winds of time.

In Penang I recall seeing my Dad smiling, and I remember too staying at their friends’ house. Just little flashbacks - looking up from a mattress on the floor towards a woven rattan wall and the window above it, moonlight streaming in.

This was the only trip I, as a child, ever made with Mum and though this is a nothing-memory, an ethereal set of fleeting images and sounds, there is still something touching and heartwarming about it that I’ve treasured for years. At some subliminal level perhaps this is why I, until today, eschew tissues for handkerchiefs. 

Mum-meries 5: Fire! Fire!

I like to tell others about how my parents were very strict and that not only did they wallop us with a cane, they also bought the cane in a roll rather than by short lengths: when one length wore out, they simply cut a new one.

The truth is that I was never really punished severely. Tony says I was spoilt and to some extent I tend to agree with him - perhaps though, only in comparison with their thrashings.

I was rather afraid of Dad for some reason. He didn’t say very much you see, but in truth he only once raised his voice at me and that was when I was 19 and had been staying out late too much. “You think this is a hotel?!” really was uttered in my home.

Mum, I was closer to and understood better. My interactions with her were more frequent and I kinda knew where I stood with her. And to be honest, though I never knew how to express it, and despite some other issues between us, she was Mummy and I loved her. Still do.

On one particular day though, I don’t think my feelings were quite so affectionate. Fearful, terrified and just about pee-in-my-pants scared would better describe them.

I was quite young then - not even school-going age I think. My sister, Rosemary, was doing some craft at home and messing about with candles and newspapers in the hall. I wandered over and after a while of watching, rolled up a bit of newspaper and lit it from the candle. Fascinated by the flame, I watched as it slowly ate away at the length of tightly rolled paper, consuming print and pictures as it made its way down…down…down… towards my little fingers.

Suddenly aware of  the proximity of the flame, I knew I had to do something but what? I went to the window to throw it out but then suddenly thought I might end up burning the house down. That would not do!

So what next?!

How?

What should I do?!

Well, what does a person do with something he doesn’t want anymore?

Throw it in the bin, what else?

And I did and sauntered off to look for something else to amuse myself with.

A minute later, I was in the middle room, still looking for something to do when I heard a scream ‘Ahhhhhhhh!’ then watched as my sister ran screaming past me down the short corridor. A few moments later she ran back in the opposite direction, armed with a pail of water. I knew something was wrong and that I somehow had something to do with it.

I closed the door and locked it. I may have been spoilt but I sure knew when I would be thrashed.
True enough, a few moments later there was a loud banging on the door. My mother pounded on the door Bam Bam Bam and screamed in Cantonese - you knew it was really bad when she screamed in Cantonese - ‘Sui Chai! Hoi Moon!’ “Evil boy! Open the door!”

That was the moment the fear and terror began though fortunately not the pee. I stubbornly refused to unlock the door - the only thing that separated me from the wailing banshee on the other side.

Eventually she wore me down. She was Mummy after all. But I was smart too! I’d let her in alright, but I had a cunning plan! I would hide! And so I unlocked the door then quickly hid behind it. Hey I didn’t say I was that bright then… She rushed in, cane in hand and immediately looked behind the door, pulled me out and that was when she caned me.

I really don’t remember the caning. I do know it didn’t last long and I do know nothing much else caught fire and the water and ash was cleaned up and the fire - including the one in my mother’s body - was quickly put out.

Perhaps this was the only time I was caned. I don’t remember. It wasn’t the only time I was scolded but when I look back on this and other incidents now, I am consumed - slowly but brightly like the fire on the newspaper - by an overwhelming affection and love for my mother and my family. For our shared stories. For the good stuff we did get to enjoy. And even for the house we still have today - despite the best efforts of some - oh, OK ‘one’ - of us to burn down.

Mum-meries 4: The Wedding Dinner

OK so my brother Tony reminded me of more of my mother’s absent-mindedness. To be fair she wasn’t often absent-minded, and in this instance was accompanied by my Dad.

The story is a very short one. My parents were invited to a wedding dinner. Distant relatives’ son or daughter - you know how it is. So on the day, my parents turned up at the restaurant and entered the dining hall. I guess in those days it was not quite so common to have registration or even ushers so they made their way to a table and sat down. They did recognise one or two people, people they probably would see only at weddings and funerals. They didn’t know many others, but again this wasn’t surprising.

So they sat through dinner, making small talk, and when the festivities were over, they trooped out along with the other guests. At the door they realised the restaurant was actually hosting two events that night. Both wedding dinners. And a sign pointed down the corridor to the wedding dinner my parents should have been attending.

I believe they made a discreet exit...

Mum-meries 3: The Psychology of Teaching

It was 1978, I was in Form 1, my Mum was still teaching in the primary school next door and and my own class teacher was Pn Aminah. One of my close friends then, and someone I recently very happily reconnected with, was Eric Toh. One afternoon, I had something urgent to announce to the class and I asked Pn Aminah permission to do so. She asked me to wait as she was attending to some of the other boys. I remember there wasn’t actually any lesson going on and the class was quite boisterous, as any class of 13 year-olds would be when the teacher was either missing or preoccupied.

Minutes passed and I brought the matter up again to Pn Aminah who once again asked me to wait.

More minutes, more waiting until I finally got quite fed up and also quite petulant. In frustration I exclaimed very loudly something to the effect that I couldn’t be bothered to try and help the class anymore. I never did make the announcement.

The next day and again it was Pn Aminah in class and once again the class was a little noisy. Hmm I’m seeing a pattern here I had not seen before… Anyway, through the burble of voices, I heard my name called. Pn Aminah looked up from talking to a few boys in the front and asked me ‘John did you do it?’ I thought she was referring to something that Eric had done which was rather good though I forget what it was now and I said ‘No Cikgu, it was Eric.’

There was confusion for some time as she was clearly referring to a different matter, then it slowly emerged that at the end of the previous day, someone had written something nasty about her on the blackboard and she had thought it was me because of my outburst. She asked me directly in front of my classmates and when I denied it, she said ‘I think it was you’ and I then denied it again and the matter was, I thought, laid to rest.

At home, during casual conversation with my Mum, I mentioned the incident as a sort of ‘funny thing happened to me today…’ and ‘guess what? I stood up to Pn Amindah and showed her who’s boss.’ sort of thing. To my surprise, Mum became very serious and asked me some very direct questions ‘What exactly did she ask you?’, ‘Was this in front of your classmates?’ and so on. I thought it strange but explained the whole thing as best I could and that was that.

Until the next day.

Once again the class was a noisy, active mass of white-shirt/green-shorts pubescent boys. Yes, there definitely was a pattern to Pn Aminah’s classes then, come to think of it… Again through the burble of voices I heard my name called. I stood up and as the class fell silent at her gesturing, she said to me ‘I would like to tell you something. Your mother came to see me this morning and we had a talk about what happened yesterday. I would now like to apologise to you for accusing you in front of your classmates when I didn’t know for certain if you’d done what I thought you had.’

I was quite taken aback. A teacher apologising to me? Almost immediately a wave of bravado and smugness swept over me and I generously replied ‘It’s OK Cikgu, no problem.’

When I got home that evening I asked my Mum if she had been to see Pn Aminah and she explained why she had: ‘When I studied to be a teacher, we learnt child psychology. I told your teacher that it was not right to accuse a child in front of his peers without complete evidence. It can destroy a child’s ego and confidence. She agreed.’

My sublings and I were brought up in a non-touchy-feely environment. An almost typical Asian family, in other words. We never hugged, much less kissed and I never heard a single member of my family say ‘I love you’ to another. At that moment however, I think I loved my mother very much and although she went on to do much more we are proud of, that was probably the first time I felt immensely proud to be her son.

Mum-meries 2: Why Aren't you Talking to Me?

Why Aren’t you Talking to Me?

My mother could not drive. She did go for lessons once a long long time ago but she proved particularly inept. So inept in fact, that it seems the instructor declared at the end of her first and only lesson that he would be long in his grave before she would ever learn to drive. And yes, he’s been gone a long time now, I’m sure, and she did never learn to drive.

For going around, she often depended on my father. And so it was with her visits to the bank - usually on Saturday mornings. Dad would take her to nearby PJ New Town where the HSBC Bank was, drop her off to do her banking then return some time later after his breakfast to pick her up from that very busy part of town. Right in front of the HSBC Bank was a carpark (invariably full) and the lane that ran through it. Mum would usually just be waiting by the side of the lane and hop into the car as Dad came by. Perhaps people were simply more patient in those days, or maybe they’d gotten the routine down pat because she wouldn’t usually be waiting too long for him.

One very busy Saturday, she stood waiting for him as a long line of cars made their way slowly past. She finally spotted the beige Mazda 323 we used to have in those days and walked up to it, grabbed the door handle as it paused momentarily, then got in and sat down. As she reached to her left for the seat belt, she began talking to my father, the topic of which we never found out. That morning she struggled a bit with the belt, and as she continued her conversation with Dad, she became frustrated with both the belt and his silence. She finally got the belt sorted, clicked it into the receptacle on her right while saying sharply, ‘Eh, why aren’t you talking to me?’.

She looked up from her seat belt struggles only to find, not my father, but a strange young man, his eyes big with surprise and shock and his mouth hanging open in stunned silence.

Mum, in equal shock, quickly said ‘Oh, sorry!’ somehow smoothly unclicked the seat belt and jumped out of the beige car - not a Mazda and certainly not our Mazda, leaving behind a bewildered young man with a tale to tell his family.

She stood there embarassed for a while then eventually spotted the correct car, got in and asked my Dad ‘Eh, where were you?’

Mum-meries 1: The Patriotic Songs Sessions

In the lead up to Mothers Day, I thought I’d just write a little about my mother. Nothing too organised - just random recollections and bits of trivia.

Here’s one of my favourite Mum-meries which I’ve told and retold quite a few times, but I reckon it’s worth another run around the block.

During World War II, Mum worked in a Japnese bank. It was a civilian-run affair but of course despite the absence of army uniforms, one was constantly reminded that one worked for a colonising power. Mum was only 16-17 then but being the eldest child, she had to contribute to the family too.

The Manager of the bank at one point started an after-work Patriotic Songs session where the staff were taught, and practiced singing, patriotic Japanese songs. Mum chose not to attend and one day the Manager came to her with a sealed letter addressed to her father. ‘You are very disobedient. Show this to your father and I want a reply soon.’

The letter said Mum was very headtsrong and disobedient and that she’d refused to attend the Patriotic Songs sessions. It ended with a request for my grandfather to discipline Mum.

How do we know the contents of the letter? Well, Mum took it back to her desk where she opened it, read it, and disgustedly threw it in the bin! A few days later, the Manager came to Mum and asked if she’d handed the letter to her father. She said ‘No! Why should i? It was all nonsense.’ thereby admitting she’d not just disobeyed him, but had also opened a private missive.

Infuriated, he raised his arm to slap her but she reached out and grabbed his hand in mid-flight, glared at him and said ‘You are someone now because your country invaded us. But after the war you will be nobody and if I ever see you again then, I will spit in your face!’

Remarkably, he did not react and did not get her in trouble. And as I understand it, she did not have to go for Patriotic Songs sessions.

When she told us this story many years ago, we said she had been mad, and that if things had gone just so slightly differently and the Manager had gotten her in trouble, we’d never have come to be. She was unperturbed and instead said something about this manager eventually settling in Singapore. His name was Sasaki and she’d never seen him again.

I checked and at the time there was just the one Sasaki in the Singapore phone book and I jokingly invited her to call and see if he was the same guy. She just laughed and said ‘Why should I?’

A few words about Warriors

Don’t mistake Warriors for soldiers for they are quite different.

A soldier is an order-taker, one who follows the direction of a superior. A soldier doesn’t think, philosophise or analyse. A sodier never operates on his own.

A Warrior, however, is invariably a loner. He has his own vision, his own philosophies, his own path, his own inner challenges, his own weaknesses. He battles not just the enemy but sometimes his own demons too.

Warriors set out to change the world. In doing so they sometimes realise they have to change themselves too. And often that is the hardest battle they face.

Warriors will always be remembered for the changes they brought about for, or in, others, and almost never for the battles they won - or lost - within themselves.

I remain proudly a Warrior.

Signs

The universe sends us signs. All the time. This was mine today.

I post it simply to share the idea that all around us are tools given to us to make our lives - mind, body, soul, ego - better. What we choose to do with those tools is entirely up to us.

Signs that I have seen are sometimes the funniest and strangest but often the most banal. Once I saw two signboards side by side that cemented an idea in my head.

When I toured Malaysia on bicycle I met a person with the same name. Another time I had a thought in my head and a person in front of me turned around and on his shirt was that thought. Word for word. 
So look for signs if perhaps you're feeling a little lost. They're there. Just waiting to be recognised.

Thank you Michael and Faith.

Pulang

And it passes…
This feeling I no longer
can contain in my heart
Take me home, I yearn
to be with you!

And it passes…

My tears I no longer

can speak of the emotion

Take me home, I yearn!

At once!

I journey through time

to quiet my ever-blue heart

And it passes…

My surroundings can no longer

soften my pain

Take me home, I yearn!

At once!

And it passes…

Oh, my steps no longer far

to bleach away my blueness

Don’t come back!

Don’t come back, I yearn!

Go far!

And it passes…

translated from the Indonesian lyric for Pulang by Float Project.

Float Project: Pulang

Opportunities

What a beautiful morning!

It simply shouts out 'opportunities' and to me it says 'go out, do something wonderful today'. What's this say to you, if anything?

This was first posted on my Facebook timeline on 3 March

LWE Chapter 4: Love is

I was contemplating the concept of love last night and reckon there are three reasons one person loves another:

1. For who the loved one is. 
We love people for their values, their ideas, their personality, their contribution to making the world a better place and so on. The attributes we love really are a reflection of what's important to us.

2. For who the loved one makes us. 
Everyone affects us and influences us and indeed changes us. We love a person for these changes we see in ourselves which are directly influenced by the loved one.

3. For the spiritual connection between us. 
There are less than a handful of people I feel connected strongly to on a spiritual plane. We could love someone we feel a bond with - a bond that has lasted beyond just this lifetime. Perhaps a soulmate or simply a soul companion we recognise from previous lifetimes or even alternate timelines.

Why do you love someone?

Your thoughts welcome here.

This post was first published on my Facebook timeline on 1 March.

LWE Chapter 3: The Brief, Dark Tea time of my Sole

I don't often bare my soul on Facebook as I think it gets tiresome - I really don't want to hear about most people's flu, or headaches or whatever and thus would spare my friends the same - and I'd really like to always look on the bright side of life as it were, anyway.

I do realise and understand intimately however, that life isn't always rosy situations and happy times and that there are moments when we go through a dark patch, no matter how positive we may attempt to be. So, as I emerge from a (to borrow and adulterate a Douglas Adams title) Brief, Dark Tea-time of the Sole, the issues I grappled with, and are finally coming to terms with, demand that I write a short note on this matter.

I came across this Maya Angelou saying a long time ago and though it skimmed my intellectual consciousness, it never really sank in beyond that. Until now.

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

I've spent much of the last month being somewhat out-of-sorts. My 'sole' time - therein lies one adulteration of the title - has also been a 'soul' time filled with some retro- and much intro-spection. Having so much time on my own in a new home and new surroundings and with new friends, the issues have been clearly magnified and laid open for me to think and ponder. Yes, I analyse. Then analyse again. Then over-analyse things. That is my nature, as my closest family and friends know only too well.

And despite the fact I do rely on the intellectual side of me too much and much as I tried to engage the more spiritual side during this time, it wasn't until recently that I finally began to succeed. The resultant insights have been moving and powerful and though the process has been painful and, indeed, still continues to play out, I am grateful that I am finally seeing - with both my mind and my soul - some truly life-changing things.

In the last few years I have made many new friends. Indeed, these last years have been about establishing new friendships, renewing some old ones, evolving some, and also ending a few.
Every single event has been a beautiful - though sometimes painfully so - chapter and as I sit here contemplating my new friends, my old ones, the ones with whom my relationship is changing and evolving, I can only marvel at how perfectly true Maya's saying is.

So, to all the friends who have been, and some who continue to be, so very important to me, thank you for being you and thank you for the way you have, or continue to make me feel. I will never forget that.

Oh, and errr...don't you go worrying if I'm standing close to the railing on a high balcony, yah? I'm happily typing away in a low-rise-hotel room, looking forward to a dinner with a new good friend tonight and with 60+ old friends tomorrow night. Oh and puhlease don't wonder why your name isn't on this list. It's my list. And my reasons. Go analyse that.

Thinking of Clifford Tan, Patsy Kam, Teresita Jose, Gan Cheong Soon, Mark Cheong, SV Singam, Nigel Tan, Kael Foo, Choy Yoong Cheong, Adelin Laura Goh, Joe Nathan Lourdes, Hannes Steiner, Steven Heong, Julie Ho, Philip Phang, Lam Wei Mei, Evelyn Reyes, Deborah Nonis.

This was first posted on my Facebook timeline on 25 February 2015.