At two, she lost her mother to a trick and a lie. By twenty, she lost her own wedding to someone else’s plan. In between and after, she learned to survive by being useful, agreeable, impressive, anything to avoid feeling unwanted again. A Mercedes they couldn’t afford, a country club they couldn’t justify, a smile that rarely cracked even when it should have. Now, in her later years, there’s still time to say the words she’s waited a lifetime to hear: Mom, I appreciate you in my life.
Mom was without her mother when she was two years old as grandma was allegedly tricked to go to HK and stay there by my maternal great grandma. The only other time she met her mom again was when she was pregnant with one of my sisters.
Granddad remarried, and mom gained many step sisters. Although her stepmother treated her well, mom probably always feels that she has to be careful and present her best appearance all the time, as she felt like a nobody’s child.
Mom’s two older sisters both moved to the US when she was in her teens. So she was effectively alone in Singapore with her two blood brothers whom she was not close with, along with her step sisters. She expressed the feeling of abandonment by the older sisters who is supposed to protect her.
Mom shared with me that during the racial riot, she hid at the home of her Malay friend for a couple of days. No one at home came looking for her, and that made her feel unwanted. She also developed a belief that she has to fend for herself as people may not always be there for her.
Mom always talked about her English speaking school friends with pride. On the other hand, dad is just so different from them as he is more Mandarin speaking and unsophisticated. Mom likes to joke that her eyes were plastered with stamp when she fell for him. I suspect she feels that she married down as her father worked in the Supreme court and studied in RI while dad’s parents were Hokkien speaking and relatively uneducated.
Did mom feel pressured to marry dad when she was only 20 years old as my paternal grandma wanted a joint wedding for her three sons, including dad, to get married together? And as she did not get her own wedding, I wonder if she felt tricked into not having her very own wedding they resulted in resentment.
When she married into dad’s household, she had to convert from Christianity to Taoism and worked in the family business biscuit factory at Mandalay Road. She mentioned being made to feel she is inferior as she gave birth to four girls until I was born. So it meant for six years, she felt suppressed in some way living in the very big family home at Mandalay Road where she had to live with six other families and sister-in-laws.
How did that background before she turned 30 shaped who she is now? She may have always been in a state of tension and be careful not to step on anyone’s toe. So she may always be trying to create value for herself by being useful in order to survive. She always handles things with a smile as a coping mechanism to be liked. But if she felt being bullied, she snaps back to defend herself and gets on a fighting mode.
For instance, how she cuts off her three close friends from our lives abruptly as she feels slighted by one of them and she does not want to be associated with them. I wonder if she was being over sensitive and paranoia about what others talked about her? Or did they have an opinion about the way she was insincere?
Her need to gain people’s acknowledgement and respect is important in the way that she got dad to buy the E280 Mercedes when he felt he could not afford it. We also maintained a Country Club family membership when we were not doing well financially. This is all to maintain the facade of “doing well,” so she can save face in front of her friends for stepping down from the quality of life we have been used to.
When dad was bankrupt due to him playing shares during the bubble burst of 1997, we had to move from the luxurious landed property life in the Serangoon to HDB life in Bukit Batok. There must be a lot of pent up resentment for dad which she could not vent on dad during those years as dad went through depression when he lost his hair and eyebrow. When he has to step down from his boss status to become a taxi driver, she probably felt shameful about that too.
After dad retired, he started staying at home and more clashes with mom ensued. Their tension increased due to mom becoming more masculine after the menopause while dad became more emotional as he aged. Whenever dad cried when he talked about past issues, mom’s first reaction is to be angry and say he was pretending. She probably felt that dad does not deserve to be sad as it was his insistence in following his friends that resulted in his bankruptcy. Perhaps deep inside herself, she may think showing of emotions is a sign of weakness which makes her not touch on emotional matters. So she might have felt dad was being weak in showing emotions.
I wish that at her ripe old age now, she can find happiness and fulfilment in the remaining time of her life. She needs to hear more of ” Mom, I appreciate you in my life.” Or perhaps “Our children are thankful that their grandma is still around in their lives.”
Not every oral stories start well. However, we can help make it end well with love, kindness and gratitude to mom who deserves a life of fulfilment.