A treasured friend, always.

2017

I lost a very good friend. It was a great shock to me because I never knew she was sick. She never gave any indication. She was always so full of faith and energy. I was even looking forward to her visit during the June school holidays. But it was not to be.

She passed on on Mother's Day. God in his mercy brought that news to me through a friend. Otherwise I would never have known.

I learned during her wake that the day after her birthday celebration with her family in January, she was admitted to hospital. She never left hospital again after that. She went from the acute hospital to a community hospital where she remained until her last.

Geok Yim, who brought me the news, and Su San had been like guardian angels watching over me.

We got to know each other when I was studying at NUS. She was a returned student, a teacher on a teaching bursary and much older than I. She and Geok Yim were my leaders in a small Bible Study group.

Her stories of her many encounters and experiences were an inspiration to me. We lost contact for some years after they graduated.

After my son was born, somehow and I cannot remember how, we re-established contact.

Because of my son's special needs, I plunged myself into taking care of him and gave up everything else. I turned down every invitation to meet friends for gatherings etc.

My friends could not understand. "You have a maid to help you, right?" they asked.

Yes but I can't leave my son to my maid, I said.

Eventually the invitations stopped because I couldn't and wouldn't go. Expectedly and understandably.

But Geok Yim and Su San came instead. They made it a point to come during the long school holidays to my house to encourage me. Because of them I found strength and grew in strength and faith.

But there was also a later time when I questioned hard many things. They never once judged me, or questioned my faith. They were spiritual leaders in the faith but they did not pretend to have the answers to my questions, or quote verses to rebut me.

With them, I could be open and transparent and criticize and lash out and question.

Because they did not, I did not turn away.

Neither Geok Yim nor I knew that Su San was so terminally sick. In fact GY only found out because she had texted Su San to make arrangement to visit me. Su San's daughter replied to the text message and that was how we came to know of her passing 2 days after she was gone.

A treasured friend, always.

Time is too precious to dwell on the negative!

For me, time is too precious to spend dwelling on the negative. I find that it consumes me to do so. I'm so glad my mother brought us up not to 'dwell in miry clay', so to speak.

I remember the time when an old neighbour told my siblings and I to go home because, she said, we were different from other children. We had no father.

We did as we were told. We were very obedient children. When my mother came back from work we told her about this. My mother was angry. She confronted the neighbour.

"In what ways are my children different from other children? They have 2 eyes, 2 ears, a nose and a mouth, just like any other children, etc."

She didn't speak for very long. Nor did she insist on any reply or apology. I think the point she wanted to drive home was: you don't ride roughshod over my children just because they are now fatherless. She was a mother defending her children.

After she had said her piece, the matter was closed. My mother did not dwell on it. She did not discuss it with us. Nor did she once speak ill of the neighbour to us despite what happened. Hence, we children were also not given to negativity. We bore no ill-feelings towards the neighbour. To me, she was just old, lonely and cranky.

Words, by themselves, have weight and words have meanings. But we also ascribe weight and meanings to words. My mother did not give too much meaning to what the old neighbour said. Neither did my siblings and I.

Justice tempered with mercy

It's quite sad to see how people cannot let go, and continue to CSI to destroy. And they are not even the one wronged.

My mother taught us that if someone has wronged you, in seeking redress, remember to allow the person a way of escape. Do not drive him to a dead end.

I call this 'justice tempered with mercy'.

I'm really thankful for all the good things my mother has imparted to me. Though illiterate, she is very wise and very kind.

'Justice tempered with mercy' is also what I learn from the Bible, found in this verse in the Old Testament, which to me, encapsulates what it means to be a Christian:

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

- Micah 6:8

Cry, Red Jungle Fowl

All the hue and cry over the culling of chickens brought me back to the time when I was still growing up and living in a kampong.

My mother was sole breadwinner working as a washerwoman to bring us up. Ever the resourceful one, she found ways to make some extra income that would come in handy during the festive seasons.

Rearing a few chickens was one of them. She asked a kind neighbor to help build a chicken coop. Some time before CNY she would buy several fluffy yellow little chicks to rear.

While they were still chicks, we kept them in a cardboard box and I had fun feeding them and watching them grow as their yellow downy feathers gradually changed to brown ones. Once they were big enough they were transferred to the chicken coop.

My siblings and I had many opportunities to wash their droppings every day with a broom besides preparing a feed for them. Sometimes we get an egg or two.

Just before new year, my mother would sell the chickens for some extra money. The chickens were in good demand because apparently they tasted better than the ones sold in the markets due to the feed they ate.

My mother did her duty also by giving a chicken each to 2 relatives who hailed from the same village in Hainan Island.