I Miss You Mummy 9

Every time I crossed the Temerloh Bridge and staring at the undulating Pahang River there is always the sense of peace and everything right in my life. Why? I don’t know actually. But I guessed it has to be connected with an incident that mom and dad like to tell me every time we cross the bridge. When I was young mom often would be hospitalized, usually in Johor, because that was where the doctor of the then Sultan of Pahang recommended was posted. Mom was hospitalized 7 days after I was born and then again after 40 days Adik was born. Dad of course will stay with uncle Nizar or Abah Abib in Johor to look after mom, leaving me (at first, then with Adik) with Tok Jamilah in Chenor.

I guessed being so young I didn’t understand why my parents would leave me, not that Tok didn’t take good care of us, but I just can’t helped feeling abandoned by Mom and Dad. I guess when I was left at 2 and a half with 40 days Adik, I was more aware of it and able to show my confusion and displeasure. The story goes when Mom and Dad came back to pick us up after Mom was discharged I refuse to be held or even speak to both my parents. There I sat quietly in the back seat of the car, silent, and if anyone knows me, a silent me is very unusual, I usually talk a mile a minute and most of them in question form, so Mom kept looking back at me willing me to speak, I don’t know how awful I made her feel, but I guess someone that young won’t have learnt empathy yet, it was when we were crossing the bridge and me staring at the river meandering slowly that I suddenly turn and say “Mummy, Daddy.” Mum said it was as if I just recognized that the adults who took me were my parents. It was as if I crossed a bridge in my mind as we were crossing the physical bridge. I guess that is why I always love crossing that bridge and why I have a deep love for the Pahang River.

Talking about the river reminds me of Mom’s unfinished opus, she was writing the story of her life, of how she grew up beside the Pahang River and how her life has meander the way the river meanders. She called it “Meandering River”, she wrote out a chapter when I was 14, her recollection of her first year of marriage and her pregnancy with me, how difficult it was for her, I read it and it made me cry. I didn’t know how hard it was for her and she wrote it so beautifully that it really tugs the heart string. Mom never continued it though because subsequently whenever she starts to continue writing it signal another relapse, until whenever mom talk about her book, we know it is a signal of her oncoming relapse, another hospital stay. I wish she could have finished it, that would have given me something of hers to read again and again, and sadly enough even that chapter she wrote is gone now, after so many moves. I don’t know maybe one day we could finish it for her, but it’ll never be the same, I miss u mummy!