For her.

She smiled and took a step forward and picked up the microphone before addressing the audience of somewhat 100 odd people. They comprised mainly of relatives and her church friends. She recounted her near death experiences and harrowing encounters of illnesses since she was young. She had been born with a hole in her heart and needed open heart surgery at a tender age. In those days these procedures were considered alarmingly scary and dangerous but she beamed and thanked the dear Lord for seeing her through. Next was the breast cancer that brought an enormous scare to the family and her of course. The chemotherapy, the treatments and operations had set her back to the disease ridden days. And just recently again, she had contracted cancer again. This time the colon. She brightly praised the Lord for having blessed her to be alive and well and the crowd murmured in unison as if to applaud her faith and strong sense of survival.

While listening to this, a pang went through my heart. She had been harsh, strict and almost unreasonable in her absolute ways. I had defiantly questioned, rebelled and screamed back almost every single time I felt the blood rise to my face as an impetuous teen, a bright eyed college kid and excitable young adult. I had boldly broken the sacred commandment in the Bible umpteen times for having yelled at her and screeching how much I loathed her. But that very instant, I felt an invisible strength beckoning me to lunge forward, and lunged I did.

I thanked the aunties, uncles and friends, for having made it to our quaint little service held for her birthday. Then a little shy embarrassment came over me as I breathed into the mic.

" You said you had these life threatening experiences and they were harrowing. You said you were born with a hole in your heart, but yours was a heart that was never lacking, never empty as you emanated faith, and love to those around you. Your devotion to God and your love for your friends can be evident from the way everyone feels your warmth. Thank you for giving kor kor and me a wonderful family, you're a wonderful mum. Happy Birthday Mummy."

I could not contain the stifled sobs as images ran rapidly through my head. I saw her serene smile as she said she was not worried when she was wheeled in the operating theatre. I saw her hugging me a little awkwardly initially when I did the grizzly hug on her in my huge displays of eccentric affection. I saw her glare at me when I complained that she was unfair for grounding me when I played video games at 14. I saw the empty bed at age 8 when she lived in the hospital after her breast cancer needed an operation. She was the first and only person who told me she never had an ambition nor thought twice about what she ever wanted to do. All because she had been born with an unsteady health and it was open knowledge to her family that she had to be taken care of specially. 

How I regretted my foolish defiant ways as a wayward teen. I must have fanned the flames and added to her rage too often with my cruel comebacks. I had challenged and retorted in my smart ass manners sometimes crossing the line a bit too eagerly. She watched as I had jumped in ecstasy, stomped in furious anger and quietly sullen in betrayed friendships. When her heart was broken I told her firmly that we would always be there for her, my brother and me. And when mine was broken she made me chicken soup with delectable abalone. This was her little way of nourishing my soul, this was her being mother.

I know she will never read this in a hundred years because it might really send fizzy chills down my spine to facebook my own ma but I thank her so much for yelling at me profusely in mandarin over the years. Because of that I became effectively bilingual and because of her fixation on soaps, I only have her to blame for my secret fascination for Taiwanese tragedies. Others had grown up with cartoons and barbies, and while me, it was those tragic tearjerkers and painful story lines. None the less it spurred my interest towards that field and reminded me of the early difficult years when I had hoped for a spartan word of encouragement or praise. As my sobs died out, the cameras clicked.

My dreadful brother told me later how we had a great picture together as a family. And all I saw was a strange oddball in the guise of Rudolph standing out of stance with two streams of glistening flood banks on the face with the two closest people to her in the world.

Happy Birthday to you, Mother Courage, Woman Warrior and Kung Fu fighter ma. You've grown a year younger again!