Sunday, October 07, 2007

Remembering her.....

How time flies, it has been 13 years since my beloved mother passed away. Tomorrow is my mother's 13th death anniversary. Since tomorrow is a working day, I brought forward the Taoist's prayer ritual to today to pray for her soul. May the all knowing Buddha and merciful Kuanyim lift her soul in the paradise of the Almighty.

Typical of woman of her times, my late mother never attended a single day of formal education. She was born in China. When she was a young girl, my maternal grandparents brought her to Malaysia, and resettled in the small fishing village of Kuala Sebatang near Taiping. After the second world war, my maternal grand parents went back to China leaving behind my mother. Today, I still have relatives from my mother side living in China and Hong Kong, but I had lost contact with them.

During my childhood years, we do not have telephone, email, yahoo messenger, or skype. Communications are done through physical letters. I still remember how my mother used to ask me to read out to her letters from her parents, brothers, and sisters from China. She will sat there quietly and attentively as I read out the contents of the letters. Occasionally she shed tears, displayed joys, and some times laugh out heartily as I read out and translated the letters to her in Hokkien dialect. It must be tough for her to be illiterate. Not able to write and read, always need to depend on third party to communicate with her loved ones. I recalled she always reminded my father to ensure all my brothers and sister have good education. In her words to my father, “no matter how poor we are, we must not be poor in educating our children. Our children life will be better if they have good education.......”.

Remembering my late mother, for what I am today, I am forever grateful to her. I am a very blessed person because I once had a mother who loved me unselfishly and unconditionally. For better or for worst, she stood by me. When I was down, she lifted me up. When I am weak, she held me, nursed me, and gave me strength to be able to stand up again. For whatever wrong that I made, somehow, she had her own way of making it right for me. When I am down and everybody seemed to gave up on me, she was able to see the best in me, gave me words of encouragement, gave me hope and faith to shoulder on. She let me made my own decisions, and supported me in every which way she can. No matter how difficult the situation is, she was always there for me.

Mother, thank you very much for all your love, support, care, and faith in me. May the almighty continues to bless your soul. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, ............

Om Namo Amithaba Buddha.

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