My Mum

My mummy's name is Lim Swee Eng. She always insists that she doesn't want to be called Mrs Lau because her surname is Lim. My mum gave birth my all her three children by Caesarean section, I like to tell her that I really appreciate it because I had an easy path in life from Day 1. I have spent so much time writing papers this year. I think it is time to write a paper about my mummy.

My mum is quite funny. She likes the movie Child's Play a lot. And her favorite action movie is Speed. She is quite a scaredy cat actually because she will cover her eyes when she watches shows that involve dangerous stunts. By "dangerous stunts", I mean, Spiderman jumping from one building to another and looking like he's going to fall to the ground. She is also very scared when we get our school results back. Scared until she cannot eat breakfast on the day we get out results. Hahahaha. She likes to play tricks on us too. She used to tell my brother and I that she is actually a fox and she needs to return to her fox babies after taking care of us for one year more. That makes us hysterical and I tell you, I really believed it then. My mum is occasionally prone to violence too. In kindergarten, there was a day when I refused to go to school, and the school bus was honking away outside the house. She proceeded to kick me under the table. She also threatened to throw me out of the window a few times, and she also threatened to chop us up with her kitchen chopper if we did not finish our dinners. Hehehe

I used to argue with my mum a lot. I remember telling her in Primary 2 that "My teacher said that a rabbit is not a mammal". I told her that because she was not taught by the same teacher, she of course does not know the truth. I remember her throwing my ring file at me and saying in Chinese, "If you are so smart you can study on your own". The next day she sat down with me to teach me again.

I continued to argue with my mum. From Nursery to Primary School to Secondary School to Junior College to University. In Secondary School she picked me up from school everyday. On the single day of the week that I did not have netball training, she would come at 2.15pm and wait at the RGS busstop for me. I remember bluffing her many times that I had to "hand up homework" so she must come later at 2.45.... this was so that I could play basketball for half an hour more. I would then climb into the car all sweaty and disgusting, insist on turning up the aircon full blast and stopping by the hawker center to pick up lunch on the way home. When she picked me up after trainings at about 5, I used to get really frustrated when she was late, because I hated waiting in school alone. In Sec 4, she told me not to go for combined schools trials and that if i went and screwed up my o levels, she will ban me from netball forever. She knew me inside out. She knew I had too much pride in me, she knew I hated to disappoint my parents, she knew that I was too greedy and wanted everything, and she knew that I would join combined schools and do well for my o levels. I tell you, my mum is way smarter than me, in fact she was so smart she did it again for my A levels.

Although I had good grades, my mum always felt that other things were more important, so each time my brother and I were ill-disciplined, my mum would pull out the same card from her deck. She would say " 什么 GEP 几百个 A1 几十个 A 都没有用的 , 我宁可有两个白痴听话的孩子 !" Of course, my brother and I would get really upset, but she did get her point across.

My mum's advice has never been wrong or bad. Of course when she dishes out her advice it always seems wrong AND bad, but each time on hindsight she's always right. It took me 21 years to realize that but now I think I finally get the point. Ok, other than for her advice to "just let the other player get the ball, don't fight and end up falling down!" Talking about that, my mum was an ardent fan of mine. However, she never liked watching me play, because she said that
1. she cannot stand the tension of close games and half the time she feels like covering her eyes when my shooters shoot because she gets too scared that they will miss,
2. she is too scared to watch me play because she has seen me collide with too many players and end up on the floor,
3. she doesn't understand what is going on when the umpires keep blowing their whistles .
4. she cannot bear to see me get scolded by the coach or benched by the coach.
5. she cannot bear to see me cry.


About Point No.5. She came to watch a match I had in Secondary 2, National Finals. We lost, I cried, she said it broke her heart. In J1, I broke my collarbone in Australia on a training tour just before my first national team game. When I came back and she picked me up from the airport, I cried and she said it broke her heart. When I had my first breakup, I cried for a few days and it broke her heart. Now, I think it is about time I stop breaking her heart eh? So I try, instead of breaking her heart, I want her to be proud of me and proud of her family. Each small achievement I have, I want to share with her because I know it fills her up with joy. One of the traits I admire most about her is her humility. She doesn't boast about her children to anyone, even though all the other relatives can boast non-stop about their kids. She leads a simple frugal lifestyle even though my dad gives her the freedom to use his money. When I tell her of my achievements, the only person she boasts about it to is my dad.

When I was in hospital for a 4mth stretch in Primary school, I remember her crying many times. I know I was pretty drugged out once and was going for a CT scan, and just before I was pushed into the room with the scanner, I remember seeing her crying and holding my dad's hand, saying that she will never be able to live another day if something bad happened to me. I also remember her getting scolded by the doctors for asking too many questions and making too many requests. She never felt embarrassed and she never felt insulted even though all the english educated doctors spoke to her with such arrogant, insulting tones.

My mum has rheumatoid arthritis. She walks with pain in her feet, and her joints ache constantly. Yet she does the housework with no complaints, she fetches my sister to and from school everyday, and she puts a homecooked meal on the table for my dad every night. It pains me to hear that she is not well and I get nightmares that one day she will not be in my life anymore. When I told her maybe I didn't want to go home to work in the civil service because there were other opportunities available for me, I could tell that she was disappointed but she never said no. When I later told her on the phone that I changed my mind and that I am going home, she said she was really happy and wanted to tell my dad right away. She did tell my dad right away, and she also repeated how glad she was that I was going home, each time we spoke in the following days.

Some people complain all the time about their parents. They feel that their parents could have and can do more for them. They feel that their parents should give them more money, should give them cars, should not do this and that. I say, time to give back. I should be the one giving them the chance to enjoy their golden years.