MY MOTHER INVENTED PATIENCE

TAKEN IN 2012 AT PJ LIVE ARTS- ONE OF MY FAVOURITE PICTURE OF MOM AND DAD

I wrote on 27 March that my son’s birth and growth taught me patience. Today I will talk about my late mom. With my mom the story is harder to tell as it has a much longer history and a bit more complex.

Let’s start by saying I love her, in fact my brother and sisters loved my mom and dad a lot. But there was a difference. With my dad it was easy, he was easy going, generally a happy guy and with him everything is ‘A okay’. He follows everywhere without imposing his will, he eats anything and virtually really, anything, his expectations of us was simple. Love each other, be happy, work hard and give your best. He is easy to live with.

My mom is a totally different person. Like my father she does not have high expectations of us and pretty much the same as dad. My mom is not a bad movie type mother, no, far from it. It was just that she has habits that makes living with her chore, a challenge and a potential family disaster movie material.

My mom was a nurse at the Ipoh Hospital Bahagia, a mental hospital. She was there for over 30 years. Now, don’t you go aww…I understand why you are posting this story. Nope, nothing like that about my mom. She is fine. Just putting things in perspective.

When I was young my mom has a habit of making cooking a home meal for 6 a cooking galore. Whenever she started cooking, I will go for jogging. She never prepared for her cooking like the ingredients that you need and place it conveniently near her. She will start by heating the wok and then put in the oil and then she will shout out for us to chop her a garlic, while the oil in the wok is heating up. Next, she will put the meat then she will call out to us to get soya sauce, black soya sauce, oyster sauce and what not, one at a time. There was once she was cooking ginger chicken and she wanted black soya sauce and she asked me to go out and buy as the chicken is still cooking.

She also has a habit of switching off any electrical switches that was on. The most memorable was when she visited me in England in the winter, she switched off my heater and light while I was showering. That puts a new meaning to cold and dark. Many parts of my body shrunk with the sudden frost.

This habit went on till the day she died. No amount of times of telling and scolding can put a dent into her mind and memory. In fact, she just replied, haha, sorry. How can one respond to that?

Later in life, when we all moved out, my mom developed a new habit. Whenever we returned for a visit, she will cook in her mind our favourite food. She will cook the broiled old chicken and served with chopped ginger and garlic. The chicken is so tough it can remove one’s dentures or give you one if you had it often enough. So, I always devised a plan whenever I went home with my family to visit. We don’t tell her we are coming until the last hour before arriving. This is to prevent her from going to the market to get the old chicken. But the next day, the chicken will still appear. Don’t get me wrong my mom was a good cook, she just got the wrong idea what we liked.

Another potentially disastrous habit was that she likes to disturb others when they cook. When I say others, I meant my wife. My wife is 168cm tall while my was 156 cm. Whenever my wife was cooking, my mom will tip toe quietly behind her and looked over my wife’s shoulder, not stand by the side like she could and should but looked over her shoulder. That annoyed my wife to the core.

I have the ‘STAND MY MOTHER’S HABITS METER’. I can stand her about two weeks staying with me. The 14 days was because that’s how long my wife can stand her habits. Then my wife will start complaining. And then I start getting irritated and then, KABOOM.

Inspite of all the above I must remind you that me, my wife, my brother and sisters, we all loved our mom and mom in law.

Another habit which was hard to live with was her ability to find and say something negative in the most positively happy situation. Like my brother’s wife gave birth and she started with, “Look baby girl so cute. Wah next time education cost is going to be very expensive.” And so many more incidents.

When my dad was alive, we never thought about what will happen to my mom. My dad was there to handle all those habits. My dad knew all her habits, but my dad loved her so much that her flaws was just a part of my mom’s beauty.

But on 16 September 2018, my dad passed away, the week of funeral, wake service and activities kept us busy from thinking about what will happen to mom. Then things settled and the four brothers and sisters started to look at the future in front with my mom. I for one knew that I can stand her for 14 days but I have promised my dad a month before he died that I will take care of her. I was regretting it already.

Now the rubber was going to hit the road. My mom will never want to live with my sister who was a year younger. Somehow my mom felt that daughter who are married should be with the other side, the in laws. My mom was funny this way. But she has exceptions to her in law rules, she somehow can live with my younger sister who is a widow living in England. My mom can definitely live with my younger brother, because he was the apple of her eyes. But I am not so sure about my sister law.

So there we are, stuck with these dynamics.

After my dad’s death, my  mom went to stay with my sister in England until January 2019. She came back to celebrate Chinese New Year and live with me for a week. She went back to Ipoh in early February 2019 and supposed to come and live with me later.

But, my mom passed away on 14 February 2019 in her sleep, on her bed, in her house, the way she always wanted. However, we discovered 8 days later that she has passed on. Some of you may asked “Why the neighbours don’t even know?”, “Can’t they smell the rotting smell of corpse?” and “Why didn’t we call her?”

Here’s her last habit that delayed the discovery of her death. She likes to switch off the volume of her phone and she also likes to just take off and go somewhere without telling us or the neighbours. So, when we called and did not get a respond, we were not surprised nor anxious until much later.

My mom’s death left me with a mixed bag of emotions. Sad that I discovered her death so late, Glad we had a good reunion dinner with her and the whole family. Sad that she was gone. Glad that I do not have to face the potential disastrous moments of living with her.

Living with my mom taught me that there are people out there who are just like. They will have habits that you cannot change. They can be loveable and loved but you can’t help hating moments when they are around.

With my mom, I learned more than patience; I learned ACCEPTANCE. Acceptance to know that I have limitations. Acceptance to know I am weak and powerless to change people. I learned that I do not need to solve all the problems caused by someone like my mom, because they are just like that and do not know it.

Most important I learned that to love someone is to learn acceptance. This thought helps me over the years working in the elderly care industry.

MY MOM AND DAD, ONE LAST WALK TOGETHER 2016