wobbles
Well-Known Member
Since Brobot shared about the significance of Dads to their kids, I thought I'd share an article about Moms (seeing how Mother's Day is coming up in May) that meant a lot to me. Those with an aversion to reading, please turn away now.
MOTHER'S GIFT
It has been a custom in our family for the children to try to do something special for mother, on Mother's Day. The special day would always start out the same - breakfast (often slightly burnt toast with either eggs that were a gooey mess or hardboiled rock solid) prepared by us, then a church service in the morning, followed by a family outing and later in the day, the unveiling of Mother's Gift - something that we the children would specially buy, or make, for mother.
Mother was made to feel like a queen - at least for a day. Looking back, I guess it was to make up for the rest of the year when we were hopelessly clueless kids driving her up the wall, and making her explain our lousy marks at school during meet-the-parents days…
I remember my first Mother's Gift: a hand-made clay ashtray done at kindergarten art class. Never mind that mother didn't smoke, and never mind that the end product looked more like a lump of canine excrement than the ashtray it originally set out to be, the expression of joy on my mother's face made me feel like a million bucks.
And so, Mother's Day and Mother's Gift became a unique tradition for my siblings and especially for me.
As I grew up, Mother's Gift became more creative. From the humble ashtray (OK, so it didn't look like one), I came up with ingenious ideas to make each gift more memorable than the last. Sometimes, the creativity was cheekily laced with ulterior motives - like the time I presented mother with a Gundam-Z snap-on Robot kit.
Which, of course, I ended up inheriting.
But by and large, Mother's Gift would be a carefully planned, lovingly executed labour of love. From burnt toast with gooey eggs, I graduated to a decent three course Western dinner, complete with her favourite medium-done fillet mignon with red wine and mushroom sauce. The whole family tucked in, but mother always beamed the brightest.
Then, there was the time when I surprised her with a unique Mother's Gift: Flying back unannounced, unexpectedly, from my university studies overseas - to visit her on Mother's Day. I'll always remember that day. It rained cats and dogs, and I was soaking wet by the time I turned up at the door, but the look on my mother's face - let's say it was even better than the time when she received that ashtray that looked like well, that.
But as with many such things, growing up often gets in the way of family tradition. The youngest of my siblings left for overseas studies, another soon migrated after getting married. I got married as well and moved out. Work commitments swallowed more of my waking hours. Post-graduate studies became more important than thinking of Mother's Gift. An ever-increasing workload often meant a card (usually bought at the last minute) became Mother's Gift. With careers and promotions and performance bonuses, even the card was forgotten ever so often.
As I grew up, other things became more important to me. My wife, my work, my friends took on an ever greater prominence. Being a traditional woman, she embraced this inevitable change as best as she could, while probably secretly yearning for the bygone times when - for that one day - she was the centre of her son's world.
But for now, she silently took pride in her son's growing independence, and accepted her place without complaint or murmur, many rungs down the social calendar of my busy schedule. Little did I know that my busy schedule would soon be turned on its head.
So, yet another Mother's Day arrived. That year, I remembered and gave my mother a call. She had been visiting my youngest brother in the States. There, she had been unwell, having come down with a persistent cough that refused to go away And being the wilful, stoic type, she'd resisted all attempts to get herself thoroughly checked by a doctor in New York, citing the unfamiliar medical setting in there, and the exorbitant costs of seeing a doctor in a foreign land. After all, she reasoned, it was just a simple winter's cough. She would attend to it when she returned to Singapore.
Upon her return a few months' later, I accompanied her to see an old friend & ex-classmate of mine. When the results were obtained, my friend tried to assuage the bad news with synonyms like "pleural effusion" and "mediastinal shift". It was a futile gesture, as two words emerged from that entire vernacular which no amount of dressing could soften: lung cancer.
Investigations gave way to hospitalization, and later, two more words arose from the swirling mess that left me with even less comfort: six months. Her cancer was end-stage.
Mother then made her decision. She declined further rounds of chemotherapy, and wanted to be discharged from the hospital. She knew the cancer would soon spread, but right now, she still had her strength about her, and she wanted to enjoy her remaining days in dignity My wife and I had no hesitation in asking mother to be cared for in our home - and, for a brief moment there was a smile on my mother's face that took us back to happier times.
So mother came to live with us, just like in the past. And because time was such a precious commodity, six months such a short period, everyday was treated as if it was our last - and lived to the fullest. In the early weeks, when she could still leave the house, I would take her to her favourite restaurants and we would have a sumptuous spread Later, when the cancer exerted its treacherous embrace and left my mother homebound, I made her my three-course Western dinner - she gamely attacked the fillet mignon, but left more than half untouched.
When she came to live with us, she had brought with her a cardboard box. One afternoon, in the latter weeks, she went through its contents and showed me the treasures contained within: Every card I'd sent her for her birthday and for Mother's Day; the dried rose I pressed for her from primary school - and even the airline ticket stub from that unforgettable Mother's Gift I surprised her with that one year. She kept almost everything I'd ever made, bought or given her for Mother's Day. It had meant that much to her, and she wanted me to know that.
In growing up, the significance of Mother's Day had become less important to me. In some way, without quite knowing it, so too had my mother. It took my mother's cancer to make me realize just how important she was to me, and just how much I loved her.
She didn't live long enough to celebrate this Mother's Day with me, passing away at 56 last year, and I never quite got the chance to prepare for her one last Mother's Gift. In the end, ironically, it was my mother who gave me one instead.
She gave me the chance to show how much I loved her before she passed on. By caring for her, she allowed me the privilege to return - however inadequately - a fraction of the love and care she had given me. She granted me the chance to make up for all the missed phone calls, the last-minute cards and the work-related absences.
And, to hear her whisper, "Son, I know you love me, I've always known" before she breathed her last – those words; those precious, priceless words, turned out to be Mother's Gift for me.
MOTHER'S GIFT
It has been a custom in our family for the children to try to do something special for mother, on Mother's Day. The special day would always start out the same - breakfast (often slightly burnt toast with either eggs that were a gooey mess or hardboiled rock solid) prepared by us, then a church service in the morning, followed by a family outing and later in the day, the unveiling of Mother's Gift - something that we the children would specially buy, or make, for mother.
Mother was made to feel like a queen - at least for a day. Looking back, I guess it was to make up for the rest of the year when we were hopelessly clueless kids driving her up the wall, and making her explain our lousy marks at school during meet-the-parents days…
I remember my first Mother's Gift: a hand-made clay ashtray done at kindergarten art class. Never mind that mother didn't smoke, and never mind that the end product looked more like a lump of canine excrement than the ashtray it originally set out to be, the expression of joy on my mother's face made me feel like a million bucks.
And so, Mother's Day and Mother's Gift became a unique tradition for my siblings and especially for me.
As I grew up, Mother's Gift became more creative. From the humble ashtray (OK, so it didn't look like one), I came up with ingenious ideas to make each gift more memorable than the last. Sometimes, the creativity was cheekily laced with ulterior motives - like the time I presented mother with a Gundam-Z snap-on Robot kit.
Which, of course, I ended up inheriting.
But by and large, Mother's Gift would be a carefully planned, lovingly executed labour of love. From burnt toast with gooey eggs, I graduated to a decent three course Western dinner, complete with her favourite medium-done fillet mignon with red wine and mushroom sauce. The whole family tucked in, but mother always beamed the brightest.
Then, there was the time when I surprised her with a unique Mother's Gift: Flying back unannounced, unexpectedly, from my university studies overseas - to visit her on Mother's Day. I'll always remember that day. It rained cats and dogs, and I was soaking wet by the time I turned up at the door, but the look on my mother's face - let's say it was even better than the time when she received that ashtray that looked like well, that.
But as with many such things, growing up often gets in the way of family tradition. The youngest of my siblings left for overseas studies, another soon migrated after getting married. I got married as well and moved out. Work commitments swallowed more of my waking hours. Post-graduate studies became more important than thinking of Mother's Gift. An ever-increasing workload often meant a card (usually bought at the last minute) became Mother's Gift. With careers and promotions and performance bonuses, even the card was forgotten ever so often.
As I grew up, other things became more important to me. My wife, my work, my friends took on an ever greater prominence. Being a traditional woman, she embraced this inevitable change as best as she could, while probably secretly yearning for the bygone times when - for that one day - she was the centre of her son's world.
But for now, she silently took pride in her son's growing independence, and accepted her place without complaint or murmur, many rungs down the social calendar of my busy schedule. Little did I know that my busy schedule would soon be turned on its head.
So, yet another Mother's Day arrived. That year, I remembered and gave my mother a call. She had been visiting my youngest brother in the States. There, she had been unwell, having come down with a persistent cough that refused to go away And being the wilful, stoic type, she'd resisted all attempts to get herself thoroughly checked by a doctor in New York, citing the unfamiliar medical setting in there, and the exorbitant costs of seeing a doctor in a foreign land. After all, she reasoned, it was just a simple winter's cough. She would attend to it when she returned to Singapore.
Upon her return a few months' later, I accompanied her to see an old friend & ex-classmate of mine. When the results were obtained, my friend tried to assuage the bad news with synonyms like "pleural effusion" and "mediastinal shift". It was a futile gesture, as two words emerged from that entire vernacular which no amount of dressing could soften: lung cancer.
Investigations gave way to hospitalization, and later, two more words arose from the swirling mess that left me with even less comfort: six months. Her cancer was end-stage.
Mother then made her decision. She declined further rounds of chemotherapy, and wanted to be discharged from the hospital. She knew the cancer would soon spread, but right now, she still had her strength about her, and she wanted to enjoy her remaining days in dignity My wife and I had no hesitation in asking mother to be cared for in our home - and, for a brief moment there was a smile on my mother's face that took us back to happier times.
So mother came to live with us, just like in the past. And because time was such a precious commodity, six months such a short period, everyday was treated as if it was our last - and lived to the fullest. In the early weeks, when she could still leave the house, I would take her to her favourite restaurants and we would have a sumptuous spread Later, when the cancer exerted its treacherous embrace and left my mother homebound, I made her my three-course Western dinner - she gamely attacked the fillet mignon, but left more than half untouched.
When she came to live with us, she had brought with her a cardboard box. One afternoon, in the latter weeks, she went through its contents and showed me the treasures contained within: Every card I'd sent her for her birthday and for Mother's Day; the dried rose I pressed for her from primary school - and even the airline ticket stub from that unforgettable Mother's Gift I surprised her with that one year. She kept almost everything I'd ever made, bought or given her for Mother's Day. It had meant that much to her, and she wanted me to know that.
In growing up, the significance of Mother's Day had become less important to me. In some way, without quite knowing it, so too had my mother. It took my mother's cancer to make me realize just how important she was to me, and just how much I loved her.
She didn't live long enough to celebrate this Mother's Day with me, passing away at 56 last year, and I never quite got the chance to prepare for her one last Mother's Gift. In the end, ironically, it was my mother who gave me one instead.
She gave me the chance to show how much I loved her before she passed on. By caring for her, she allowed me the privilege to return - however inadequately - a fraction of the love and care she had given me. She granted me the chance to make up for all the missed phone calls, the last-minute cards and the work-related absences.
And, to hear her whisper, "Son, I know you love me, I've always known" before she breathed her last – those words; those precious, priceless words, turned out to be Mother's Gift for me.
