zomg i really dislike cny. what’s so good about the reunion dinner afterall? i mean, people focus so much emphasis on this once-a-year dinner because it is the only time that “relatives will all come together to have a meal”. but i am very sure kinship is more than just eating a dinner together once a year. does this meal represent how close each one of us are bonded? i think it’s just superficial. and i really don’t enjoy this annual event simply because..
dinner has been rather meaningless ever since the demise of ah ma 8 years ago. today, i was bored and decided to leaf through some of the stuffs that i always saw ah ma holding. the rectangular cigarette box, when i opened it, i saw her handwriting. she wasn’t very literate i suppose, but her every stroke in writing numbers.. those scenes when she would puff into her cigarette jotting some details on her favourite chair is still etched in my mind. i couldn’t resist two drops of tears when i saw all her slips of papers of numbers.
i decided to watch tv. but i was curious and opened the cylindrical cigarette can which she always kept within her reach. more of her handwritings. i couldn’t take it anymore. 2 more tears trickled and i decided it was enough. it has been 8 years. 8 times of reunion dinner without the dishes being changed. ah ma used to steam prawns with garlic and dip with plum sauce. i loved that sauce. but ever since her demise, my mum never cooked that dish. i want to eat steamed prawns in plum sauce, not sweet and sour prawns. i want to eat ah ma’s porridge with teochew-styled steamed promfet (?) and salted eggs. i want to eat ah ma’s ku chye kueh, pink rice kuehs and soon kuehs. suddenly, i realised i missed my ah ma much more than ever.
8 years of absence, 8 years of love, 8 years of braving the heat and incense to visit the temple with ah ma’s ashes. i don’t know why i am crying now.but i feel sad and lonely. kindergarten days were the happiest memories of how i have spent time with ah ma. and they are all that i have left to last me throughout my life. i wish it would rain, i want the raindrops to wash my tears down the drain. i want the time to turn back, i want to eat everything ah ma could cook. i want to be by her deathbed, i want to hear her mutter my name as her last words..
but all these, will never come true anymore. ah ma, i am sorry if i didn’t live up to your expectations. but, i still love you. even though you are physically gone, you will have a place in my heart, no matter which part of the world i am in.
