My sister made an entry, in sepia-toned retrospect and with fond nostalgia. She writes so beautifully and so exquisitely, that her narrations drive me back to the days, where love was openly abundant, under this roof we now can only bittersweetly address as Home. I was transported to the various scenarios as her prose flowed, word after word. It was then, that I was faced with the appalling realisation of how much I had made myself forget. Here and now, I attempt at digging up the archaelogy of memories beginning from way back.
He took me to the Yamaha music learning school and instructed me to make a life-changing decision, at four. He squatted down to the height of my little frame and his exact words were,"if you go right, you'll learn piano. If you go left, you'll learn ballet." Right I turned towards, and Right was the direction that would discern the many years of how I grew up and it would eventually carve a career out for me. Tough love, but surely, Daddy loves me very deeply.
There were the Saturday supper nights, many hours after spending evenings at grandma's. A family in sleepwear, adjourning to various locations to have our weekend night-time supper eat-outs. At times it would be Macdonalds at Kallang, other nights he'd just drive us alongside big and luxurious private landed estates. June and I would vie for the front seat, and Mummy would always let us have it when it rightfully belonged to her. I would carry my colourful soft toy of a caterpillar lovingly mentioned as Dardar where ever I went. I remember us sisters intentionally feigning deep sleep in the car, so that both parents would carry us, one child for one parent, back home and have us tucked into bed.
A birthday. Mummy's birthday. The only birthday of hers that Daddy ever bought her a gift for. Birthdays always ring bells of familiarity. He had gotten her Gucci's Envy. And it was the sweetest gesture I had ever witnessed from them. Second to that would be us siblings discovering that they were holding hands, hidden under an umbrella in the rain. The other moments of saccharine were occasional and indirect. But these two, I would never forget the precision and vividness of these memories.
The night, that night, one that they finally spent a night sleeping in the same room, after 6 years of sleeping apart as husband and wife. The night of hope for us both. The night I deemed was going to save any broken relationship around here. The way my mum spoke with so much hope and heart, about them rekindling their ties as a married couple, as man and woman blessed by God to always stay as One, provided me with pure and undeterred hope.
The fateful mishap, when he collapsed in the toilet, when we had to literally carry a grown man to the hospital, when I thought I was going to lose my father of this world to an accident. The three of us stayed nearly throughout the night. Mummy had work the following day and I had school. When I had reached the hospital to join my parents, Mummy was holding onto his hands while he was slightly delirious from post-surgery and morphine. Although deeply moved, I was old and jaded enough an age, to know that this mortality-threatening incident wouldn't be sufficiently awakening to patch things up between them. I had wished that his recuperation would require the hospital staying him in for a longer period of time, so that their lovingness would last a little longer.
These are meerly snippets of what can be surfaced by recollection. The things remembered are minimal, but they shall always be profoundly etched in hearts that they matter to.
I could have never clicked the link leading to my sister's blog, but I did anyhow. I could have never thoroughly read through her post, but I did anyhow. I could have been misled into believing that my sister never cared as much as I did, but God showed me, in littlest ways of the unexpectation, and through this entry, that my sister hasn't desserted me to deal with this familial ordeal alone.
I have a man, though by age still a boy, who treats me and my family with sincere love. For certain, I know that he is going to stand by me through these upcoming trying periods of my life. He is finally the one, who is willing to stay and rough it out. He loves me genuinely. He has so much kindness and compassion and empathy in his heart, that it is hard for anyone not to love him. And how fortunate and blessed can I be, that I'm the only girl who gets his undivided love and concern. I am whole-heartedly thankful for Ben, every conscious moment of every day. Ben happened to me, out of the oddest of scenarios and unpredicted circumstances. Ben happened to me, when love was not part of my plan. God let Ben happen to me. And that day Ben happened to me, was the luckiest day of my life.
Things could have been better. They always could have been. But I am contented with my fill and what blessings I have been given. My life may not read perfect, but love is already perfecting it. Everything happens for reasons. God intends it that way, for the growth of our maturity. These hardships and these endless suffering, has made us nurture into strong and good people. God does love us so much, we just have to grow up someday to see it. And as long as I love, I know I will grow to become a better person, each day as it passes. I'll just have to leave what I am unable to control, in His hands. He will show me the way.
Could you possibly understand where this is coming from?
"certain ideas flash to our minds with a smell, a sight, or thought of something that triggers the memory. always and every time, my mind returns to 10 years ago when we first bought the guitar the the abba cd. we were in my room, listening to fernadez when my dad struck a pose across the doorway with the guitar slung over his chest... then, he strummed to an improvised version of abba with lyrics of having picked me up from the garbage and how my mom smelt like that. my mom then boast that my dad could play the drums too. all in good humour. the light was dimmed that evening and the air was cool and fresh in the room - a mid year christmas. i laughed my ass off so badly in that phase that the term st.smiley stuck on quickly to my uproarious laughter as i rang the kangaroo bell through the house at 8am most mornings going "wakey wakey, rise and shine sleeping beauty". a nuisance, but always most determine to turn every wrong side of the bed right with a beam. some times, i wonder where i went to.
the time my sister had septic artheristis, i slept in my favourite corner of my dad's room convinced that his worldly pressence would chase the night ghosts casts by the looming cast iron piece over the masterbedroom. i was convinced my sis would die and made an errornous call one day to woodbridge instead of kk and was scared stiff by the old man that greeted me on the other line. we - my dad and i - made many circles around the florists and ate our daily most delicious wanton mee before buying a lettuce pie up (vegetables never appealed to me but i remembered that being exceptionally delicious).
i remember the drama that ensued from a late night hospitalisation which i thought was the end of many bad things with the love it brought forth, but tender things like love fade as quickly as recovery gained speed. i sat by the hospital bed reading great expectations and could not help but feel so blessed with this tragic but blissful moment.
then, the last of the things i remember. a birthday. a dinner. and the one moment my tongue went backwards - i had no words, only sadness. i remember all as if from a past life because i can hardly comprehend them now. love, i don't know how else to say this but love has no way to die. like energy, it can be converted to other forms but has no death incapacitated by time or space.
love, is such a strong feeling in our hearts.
memories - to forget them would be impossible with the intricacies in which they are intertwined with our personalities. i keep recalling for i fear forgetting. however, with each recollection, the memory is less of its own character and more of the additions your creative mind takes to invent."