13 May 2007, ST
My mother is a firm believer in tough love. While I never doubted she loved me and my sister, sometimes, I wonder
By Cheong Suk-Wai
I REMEMBER the exact moment when I realised how much my mother loved me.
It was one of those remarkably unremarkable afternoons bathed in half-light and a drizzle, and I was just another sulky teenager helping my mother get the week's groceries at the bric-a-brac Cecil Street Market in Penang.
We usually ended off with a glass of cold soy milk each, at one of the rickety tin-top tables where other womenfolk also cooled their heels and slaked their thirst, if only for a while.
But today, my mother was nowhere to be seen, and I scanned the hordes anxiously for a good half hour, and muttered about how she might have left me a few cents to buy my drink, at least.
Then, finally, there she was, coming out of the crowd and bearing a hot plate of my favourite snack, stir-fried rice cubes with chives and beansprouts.
She was nursing a flu that day, but had queued at the market's most popular stall just to get me a dish I had not even dared ask to take away, knowing what a frustrating wait it was.
It was hard getting the snack down because of the lump in my throat.
YOU may well wonder why I even questioned how much my mother loved me.
Welcome to her world of Teflon-tough love, where the done thing is always done before any thought of personal pleasure.
She has a terrific temper to boot - the flip side of her verve for life, I suppose - with a cane as her crutch. (I still have lash scars on my right leg to show for it.)
Case in point: When I was a tyke, a neighbour called at our flat in Kuala Lumpur one day and, presumably grateful for this respite from her cook-and-clean routine, my Mum started a good chinwag with her.
Engrossed in the chat, she absent-mindedly called out to me to switch off the fan in the kitchen.
Not having done this before, my four-year-old sense told me to use something to stop the turning blades.
I used the index finger of my right hand.
So it was that I spent the better part of the next six months eating with my left hand because, as my Mum reminded me every time I winced from the wound, she could not believe her daughter was so stupid.
As my Mum liked to chastise me, the none-too-practical bookworm, in Hokkien: 'Ju thak, ju gong.' That's Hokkien for 'the more you study, the dumber you are.' How I used to chafe at that.
And I cannot remember ever having seen my mother cry, not even when my bones melt every time we rush my father to the intensive care unit. But, as she's taken to telling me these days: 'My tears fall on the inside.'
MY MOTHER was but a nugget in my grandmother's belly when World War II hit Malaya in 1941.
My maternal grandparents, or Ah Kong and Ah Ma to me, ran deep into a rubber estate for refuge, with six children and servants in tow.
Not knowing what horrors might come, Ah Ma devoured pineapple and drank bitter brews in a bid to abort my Mum. But, somehow, my Mum clung on for dear life, only to be born, and estranged from then on, by my grandmother.
Now I don't know much about genes, but it seems that that rejection, however reasonable, was seared into my mother's consciousness.
Luckily, Ah Kong, a well-to-do rice miller, doted on her and so she became the first in her family to study overseas - in London. There, she gadded about in the snow in a pricey fur coat and cat's eye glasses, even as Ah Ma tut-tutted.
That is why I have never doubted that my Mum has always given me and my sister the mother's love she never had as a child.
But having married down by choice, her tough love meant that her daughters would learn not to pine for what they could not have.
We hardly shopped for clothes, much less make-up, well into adulthood. Somehow, I saw her point. Where had rags and rouge gotten her anyway? Only decades of drudgery as a housewife, although you would never hear her say it out loud.
That was why I was so moved by her spontaneous gesture in Cecil Street that day.
Love isn't love, really, unless it's deep.
TODAY, my mother has grown a little rounder, a little greyer and, I like to think, a little calmer.
Our relationship now is such that I call her Cutie Pie - which she likes - and she loves nothing better than to SMS me a good joke she's just heard.
So, yes, time can temper all.
Today, I see my mother for who she is - a woman who has devoted 40 years of her life to her loved ones.
That is why I shower her with treats and gifts. All she has to do is mention she likes something, say, smoked salmon, before she has smoked salmon coming out of her ears.
I have only one mother and one life to live, so I like to think that her gruff harrumphs and frowns at such extravagances are just her tough-love way of saying she likes them.
In March, as regular readers of this column may recall, my father had a long stay in the intensive care unit.
When he came round, he told his heart doctor: 'Luckily, I have a wife who's smart to spot the warning signs and rush me here.'
Looking on, my Mum beamed as I had never seen her beam before. She blurted: 'Thank you for noticing.'
Happy Mother's Day.
My mother is a firm believer in tough love. While I never doubted she loved me and my sister, sometimes, I wonder
By Cheong Suk-Wai
I REMEMBER the exact moment when I realised how much my mother loved me.
It was one of those remarkably unremarkable afternoons bathed in half-light and a drizzle, and I was just another sulky teenager helping my mother get the week's groceries at the bric-a-brac Cecil Street Market in Penang.
We usually ended off with a glass of cold soy milk each, at one of the rickety tin-top tables where other womenfolk also cooled their heels and slaked their thirst, if only for a while.
But today, my mother was nowhere to be seen, and I scanned the hordes anxiously for a good half hour, and muttered about how she might have left me a few cents to buy my drink, at least.
Then, finally, there she was, coming out of the crowd and bearing a hot plate of my favourite snack, stir-fried rice cubes with chives and beansprouts.
She was nursing a flu that day, but had queued at the market's most popular stall just to get me a dish I had not even dared ask to take away, knowing what a frustrating wait it was.
It was hard getting the snack down because of the lump in my throat.
YOU may well wonder why I even questioned how much my mother loved me.
Welcome to her world of Teflon-tough love, where the done thing is always done before any thought of personal pleasure.
She has a terrific temper to boot - the flip side of her verve for life, I suppose - with a cane as her crutch. (I still have lash scars on my right leg to show for it.)
Case in point: When I was a tyke, a neighbour called at our flat in Kuala Lumpur one day and, presumably grateful for this respite from her cook-and-clean routine, my Mum started a good chinwag with her.
Engrossed in the chat, she absent-mindedly called out to me to switch off the fan in the kitchen.
Not having done this before, my four-year-old sense told me to use something to stop the turning blades.
I used the index finger of my right hand.
So it was that I spent the better part of the next six months eating with my left hand because, as my Mum reminded me every time I winced from the wound, she could not believe her daughter was so stupid.
As my Mum liked to chastise me, the none-too-practical bookworm, in Hokkien: 'Ju thak, ju gong.' That's Hokkien for 'the more you study, the dumber you are.' How I used to chafe at that.
And I cannot remember ever having seen my mother cry, not even when my bones melt every time we rush my father to the intensive care unit. But, as she's taken to telling me these days: 'My tears fall on the inside.'
MY MOTHER was but a nugget in my grandmother's belly when World War II hit Malaya in 1941.
My maternal grandparents, or Ah Kong and Ah Ma to me, ran deep into a rubber estate for refuge, with six children and servants in tow.
Not knowing what horrors might come, Ah Ma devoured pineapple and drank bitter brews in a bid to abort my Mum. But, somehow, my Mum clung on for dear life, only to be born, and estranged from then on, by my grandmother.
Now I don't know much about genes, but it seems that that rejection, however reasonable, was seared into my mother's consciousness.
Luckily, Ah Kong, a well-to-do rice miller, doted on her and so she became the first in her family to study overseas - in London. There, she gadded about in the snow in a pricey fur coat and cat's eye glasses, even as Ah Ma tut-tutted.
That is why I have never doubted that my Mum has always given me and my sister the mother's love she never had as a child.
But having married down by choice, her tough love meant that her daughters would learn not to pine for what they could not have.
We hardly shopped for clothes, much less make-up, well into adulthood. Somehow, I saw her point. Where had rags and rouge gotten her anyway? Only decades of drudgery as a housewife, although you would never hear her say it out loud.
That was why I was so moved by her spontaneous gesture in Cecil Street that day.
Love isn't love, really, unless it's deep.
TODAY, my mother has grown a little rounder, a little greyer and, I like to think, a little calmer.
Our relationship now is such that I call her Cutie Pie - which she likes - and she loves nothing better than to SMS me a good joke she's just heard.
So, yes, time can temper all.
Today, I see my mother for who she is - a woman who has devoted 40 years of her life to her loved ones.
That is why I shower her with treats and gifts. All she has to do is mention she likes something, say, smoked salmon, before she has smoked salmon coming out of her ears.
I have only one mother and one life to live, so I like to think that her gruff harrumphs and frowns at such extravagances are just her tough-love way of saying she likes them.
In March, as regular readers of this column may recall, my father had a long stay in the intensive care unit.
When he came round, he told his heart doctor: 'Luckily, I have a wife who's smart to spot the warning signs and rush me here.'
Looking on, my Mum beamed as I had never seen her beam before. She blurted: 'Thank you for noticing.'
Happy Mother's Day.
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