leave tomorrow, live tonight.

to my mother:
often, in the most infuriating of times, the mother will ask me to pick up my things and clean up after myself. she is blunt and forward and most of the time she says things that i never want to hear and usually deny to myself. she rarely gives out compliments and like most asian parents, she doesn’t back down when it comes to getting her way with the child. the brother and i don’t stand a sliver of a chance when she puts her foot down. but she’s there when i need her to be. she never says it explicitly but it’s unspoken – need advice? off to the Mother.stressed? worried? the Mother has the answers. she used to be really strict but i think over the years she’s mellowed. the mother isn’t the most vocal in her affections but she’s always there with my dad to pick me up. she prepares food for me when i go to school and she makes sure i get enough rest (even if she does it in the brusque-est of ways – ‘go and sleep!’). recently the grandmother’s in hospital and she’s been there every single afternoon and night to make sure everything is going alright. she’s tired but she listens to me panic about my work and my dog (and you know once i start i need to be gagged so i will stop). she cares for beanie like a third child and it makes me wish i was young again.

to my dad:

easily the more laidback of the two. he used to teach us all the sports – badminton, cycling, rollerblading, swimming. tonight, every night, he comes in to my study and he says ‘i miss you’ or ‘i love you’ and it makes my heart clench. he means it, he really does. i feel sad that i can’t talk to him as well as i can to my mother since he always encourages us to open up to him more. he is one of the few people that i respect alot. when i was in p6 we wrote a chinese essay on the person we respected most, and i wrote about him. but i didn’t know enough to write a truthful essay and years later when i looked at it again, i really felt that i didn’t do justice to him. if i had to rewrite it, this is what i would say – i respect him for his drive, his ability to be measured in what he does, but above all i respect him for how he constantly tries to improve himself. he didn’t go to an english school and he only picked the language up much later on without any formal education. he is always reading and he doesn’t feel embarrassed to ask either of us the meaning of a particular word. last year he took up advanced (!!!!) rollerblading classes and this year he’s in the CC karaoke class with my mother. i laugh at him and tell him he is an old man, but he just says ‘young at heart’. and it’s true. he has alot of energy for what he does (sans work) and he really works at getting it right.

they are a tough lot to please, but very easy to piss off. we used to know that we were in trouble when we got hauled into their room and the big sewing ruler was brandished. what followed were multiple circles around the room attempting to play cat and mouse. when i was younger the house was ruled with an iron fist. we had an entire system of ‘house rules’ – no sleeping over at chalets, friends’ houses, no boys to sleep over, strict curfew. i almost impaled myself climbing over the iron gate when i was in sec 3 because i had broken the 11 pm curfew and was locked out.

but they have never let me down. i feel so touched everytime i finish studying in the library at 9 (somedays 10) and they are there to pick me up. when i get into the car, they ask ‘had dinner? let’s go eat something’. every night they are there waiting at the foot of the stairs when i lug my things down too tired and grumpy to talk to them properly. when i was having my A levels they both got up at 630 am everyday to go to the temple to pray for me. when beanie couldn’t walk, they paid for acupuncture and they brought her to the vet every saturday with me.

i’m not a parent, but i have my own baby – my dog. i worry and fuss and stress over her. what she eats, when she scratches, how come she doesn’t like to mix with other dogs. i can only imagine how tiring it is to care for someone else other than yourself. i give them alot of grief (in maturity years i’m obviously light years behind my brother) and i used to be such an annoying ass. ah, puberty. i’m sure the whole family is glad that i’m past that phase.

i used to wish that my family were closer. some of my friends have really close families and i really used to want that. we don’t have many family photos together and they rarely get leave to go for trips. i used to think that my family was imperfect but really, it isn’t. i am thankful for the little things that fit together even if things fall apart from time to time. i am lucky.