LWE Chapter 8: The White Moth cometh

Here's a spiritual story I'd like to share with you.

Dad passed away in 1988. He had lung cancer and the downhill run took only 3 months from diagnosis until the finish line.

During that time, he and my Mum were in touch with their good friends in Penang, Johnny Cardosa and his wife, Yee Hah. Johnny was a cancer survivor and was actively helping with a cancer society, so when he heard my Dad had cancer, he made sure to keep in constant contact with his old friend.

My Dad passed away early on the morning of 30th April 1988, flanked by Mum and my sister and her husband and my brother. When the rest of us heard the news, we all bought our air tickets or filled our petrol tanks, packed our bags and got back to the family home as quickly as we could. I flew back from Australia with my brother Joe.

A little later that morning, Mum received a call from Johnny who said quietly ‘Mary, I had a dream about Pak Yik last night, and in my dream he appeared to me and said “Johnny, I’m happy now”. So I thought I’d better call you to suggest you prepare for the worst.’

‘But you don’t understand, Johnny,’ Mum replied. ‘Pak Yik passed away a short while ago…’

If you're really happy, let me know.

Dad’s body lay in a coffin in our living room that night and as is the custom with Catholic families, the neighbourhood church group - the BEC - gathered, along with family and friends, to run through a prayer service. We had all arrived by that time, I think, and after everyone had gone, we eventually settled down in the house to rest. Some of us indeed slept in the hall near Dad. Bear in mind there are 7 of us so you can imagine that our house was rather packed.

Late that night, Mum, who couldn’t find the comfort of sleep, came out from her bedroom and into the hall. She sat quietly among us, rosary in one hand, silently praying. 

In her prayers she said to Dad ‘if you’re really happy, please don’t go around telling others. Let me know directly instead.’

The Chinese have a belief that a white moth is the spirit of a deceased one. And a short while after Mum prayed those words, a white moth flitted into the hall from the dark night outside. Mum saw it and followed it with her eyes as it flew around the casket, then flitted around each of our slumbering selves in turn before settling on the floor next to Mum.

Reassured and suddenly very tired, she fell asleep in the chair. 

The next day, she told us about this moth and at first, as is the Cheong way, we responded with skepticism and some downplaying. Still, Mum was convinced it was a sign.

No one really believed the story of the white moth

Nightly prayers are often conducted for a week straight - from the first day the body returns to the home until after the funeral. So on the second evening, everyone gathered again and Mum told a few about the previous night’s visitor. Patient and comforting though slightly disbelieving smiles were the most common response though no one outright pooh-poohed her story.

And soon they would have no reason too, for for the second night in a row, a white moth appeared as we all went through the prayer service.

This one did the same as the one before, or was it the same moth? It flew around each of us, the casket, and Mum, before flying up to the ceiling where it clung.

‘You see it? You see it?’ Mum whispered to all of us. 

‘Yes, Mum’ we nodded back. And so as prayers went on, that moth stayed put. And then, suddenly, one of the many house lizards that roamed our walls and ceilings put in an appearance. It spied this delectable morsel and crawled towards the moth in little bursts of speed. 

With each advance, Mum grew more anxious… ‘Aiyoh…’ was in her eyes, and on her lips. And well, to be honest, we were by this time all transfixed upon this mounting drama unfolding 10 feet above the murmuring prayers.

The lizard finally reached the moth which amazingly still stayed put. It sniffed the moth a bit and as Mum watched anxiously, it suddenly turned around and scurried off. Uninterested in dinner, it seemed, much to Mum’s relief.

The moth survived the night and by the next morning had flown off somewhere.

On the third night, as we prayed, who do you think put in an appearance? Yes, another (or was it the same one) white moth.

One white moth a month is already fairly unusual. 3 on 3 consecutive nights is beyond belief. And on each night, for it to be left alone by predators raises eyebrows ceiling-high.

Make that 4 in 4. For on the fourth night, it came again. And the lizard left it alone yet again. Oh wait, 5 in 5. Yes, 5 nights in a row, we had a white moth visitor.

On this 5th night, though, something else happened. This time, the lizards gathered more menacingly and as we watched anxiously, this time the end was different. The lizard came, sniffed… and chomped. 

‘Ayoh!’ Mum exclaimed. And I think we all gasped too. Prayers continued, then a few minutes later, something happened that raised all the hairs on our necks a little skyward.

For the second time that night, a white moth flew in. A second white moth. In one night.

Chomp!

Prayers were automatic at this time, led unhesitatingly by (if I remember correctly) my uncle Albert Rozario who had his eyes closed as he recited the Our Fathers and Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s… The rest of us? We had eyes only for the moth as it flew around us then settled on the ceiling.

Chomp!

The lizards were fast making up for their earlier fasting, it seemed.

And then…. a third white moth of the night came in. The lizards were, by this time, satiated, so this fella survived to fly another night.

And so, for the rest of the prayers, we had a white moth for company.

What do we make of this? Well, I am neither very Chinese (more a Banana than a Cantonese, as I tell people) nor very religious. And I am quite removed from knowledge and practice of Chinese customs and traditions.

But I am convinced the moths were a visual message of reassurance, the answer to Mum’s request of Dad. ‘Let me know…’ she’d asked of him. And so he did, using a device he was more familiar with than I was, but one we all could understand.

Dad died too soon. Just shy of his 65th birthday, he’d finally retired and was looking forward to spending even more time tending his plants and going fishing. He and Mum would have been able to do things with a freedom they’d not quite had before. 

It’s good that even beyond his earthly existence, he found some way to still keep in touch and let us know he was watching over us.

[picture of moth from: http://bristolwood.net/2012/05/26/quite-the-collection]

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 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?’