Mother, do you
remember? Upon our first arrival here in a foreign land, the many houses we had
to go through before that little apartment behind Springvale train station was
officially ours to call home? How can you possibly forget? As for me, I
can only pretend to remember. It pains me even until today, reflecting on the
past I was told about and knowing that there was nothing I could have done for
you. How you would run in the middle of the night to the milk bar and buy me my
daily dose of milk for the next day, how you would hold me tight in your arms
through the rain with a mere plastic bag shielding us, how you cried for days,
kicking the wall due that aching tooth you couldn’t afford to take out at the
dentist.
It had never occurred to me how much you had suffered, how much hardship you and daddy had to endure to bring us where we are today. That one time, when you told me how you ran away from a taxi thinking it was the police, I laughed so hard, so hard I started to cry... you know, I actually think, getting kicked out of aunt’s house at that time, sleeping in people’s hallways in front of toilets, eating plain rice with soy sauce wasn't all that bad of a thing. You’ve been through so much, a mere thank you doesn’t even add up to everything you’ve done for us, for me. I’m so grateful that I was conceived into such a loving family, so caring, so kind, so unbelievably wondeful.
You married father not out of love, but out of your parent’s wish. I wondered how love would work, but then, when daddy was admitted into hospital due to major blood loss, I saw the love you had for him pouring out like a waterfall. You even hugged the wrong person in bed crying out daddy’s name. That was funny, but it doesn't beat the memory you had with me still in your stomach. Daddy was taking you to town on a boat back in Cambodia; half way there, the little boat tipped over. I think both of us could have ended there being that you could barely keep yourself afloat, but it was daddy who held you up whilst recovering the boat.
All these good and bad memories... I hope to never forget them. But as I grow older, I seem to forget them too often. Therefore, I am writing them down now, so that whenever I read this I would remember and never, ever forget. I sometimes wish I was a kid again; I miss you waking me up in the morning, tying my hair into two ponytails, packing my snack, watching me write my lunch order as I taught you what each word meant, I miss dearly the quality time we spent with you walking me to school, carrying my backpack and telling me how important education is. It seemed only yesterday when I was enrolled into Saint Joseph’s Primary school, and today, it’s less than two years until I finish High School.
Let’s not grow too far apart, as long as I have you I believe anything is possible, anything is achievable because of you I came so far, because of you we are all here. Mommy, I love you so much. I’m so glad I have you in my life, so glad.
