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Letters

There was a pile of letters on top of one of the boxes in my mum's room, dated throughout the year 1983. Most of them were written by my mum to my dad who was at that time doing his doctorate in Hawaii, while the rest of us were in Malaysia. We had lived in Honolulu since I was about a month old before we returned to Malaysia early in 1982. Not long after that my sister KJ was born and Dad went back to Hawaii to finish his work, leaving my mum to look after a new-born baby and three other boisterous children, aged seven, four and three.

At first my mum was shy about letting me read the letters, saying that they were full of nonsense but because I can be a pushy busybody, my mum eventually relented. The first two letters in the pile were clumsily written by my eldest sister. She had clear if somewhat lopsided handwriting. Her letters were filed with tales of what she did at school, how her younger siblings were doing and exhortations to my dad to tell Miss Ojima (who I presume used to be my sister's schoolteacher in Honolulu) of the number of As she was getting at school. At the end of each letter was a plea for my dad not to forget his promise to get her a boy and girl Monchichi doll. She quite adamantly stated that it was Monchici dolls she wanted and if Dad could not get Monchici dolls than she would rather have no dolls at all. Even at that age, my sister was savvy enough to be very specific with Dad because he has a tendency to bring home all sorts of junk. Even a hard-hearted woman like me could not help be moved by a seven year old's heartfelt desire for a Monchichi doll.

Mum's letters to Dad were tender missives to a much missed husband. There were large chunks of it which I skipped because they were too personal to read, but I could not mistake the anxiety, love and wistful longing of a young couple separated. It's very discomfiting to read such private thoughts, especially when it's your own mother's in her youth. I can't imagine my parents ever being young once.

Much more interesting to me, and less embarrassing, were Mum's news of us kids to Dad. It certainly revised ideas of what I had of our early childhood. I had always thought us kids did not mind our dad's frequent absences from home but my mum detailed plenty of occasions where we would whine about Dad being gone for so long. Disney books seem to calm us down and my mum told my Dad to buy more while he was in the States. There was also a time when my brother got terribly upset in Lake Garden, bashing a stick on the stones and the ground, because he could see a lot of the other children playing with their fathers while his was not there.

There were stories of the children being ill and how difficult it was to do anything else in the house because KJ would not let go of her, or go to anyone else either. My dad's favourite story to tell the family (and strangers) is how I always ran and hid under my mum's sarung whenever visitors came to the house so I'm glad to know I was not the only clingy one in the family. There was also two accounts, one from my mum and one from my sister, of how my brother pushed me down the stairs and 'there was blood all over the place.' My sister seemed quite pleased describing the carnage. My mum wrote that she was so proud of how brave I was when she took me to a clinic and the doctor sewed up my chin. Apparently I did not even cry but my memories of that event was how absolutely terrified I was. I may have been only three and a bit but I knew needles were sharp and painful and I was struck with terror that my mother would actually just sit there and let some stranger stick a needle in me. I don't know why my brother pushed me down the stairs but I got my own back a few years later when I locked him in a wooden chest and he cried like a baby until our neighbour came and hacked it open.

Just as I find it hard to imagine my parents as ever being young, trying to remember my siblings as children seems like trying to remembe people unrelated to me. I know my siblings best as they are now, in their adulthood, and the children that my mum wrote of in her letters come from a lost time and place. I guess we were more innocent then.

Comments

Maryam said…
How come there's no mention of me in any of these letters? Oh, that's right, I was on the slow stork to earth. Beh, it sucks being born last in a family. Makes you feel like an immigrant. Not that there's anything wrong with being an immigrant. Unless you ask some extreme right-wing nationalist/ older sibling with issues - "I was here first, I have more right!"
Anonymous said…
dude. that was kinda depressing. Poor Ma :(

and our favourite brother :(
Anonymous said…
Jeebuz Yam.

ME ME ME ME.
Kere said…
Uh, I wasn't trying to be depressing. More like sharing something I found with siblings in different continents.

Well, Maryam does have a blog. Of course it will be ME ME ME.

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