(Dear friends, this is a post I had to struggle with. Please bear with me.)

Tuesday night
we came home and found a note
a note that’s too familiar
a note that I grew up picking at the steps of my door
it wrote my house unit number
the word “Call” and a mobile phone number

Allan knew
I knew
we all knew what it was
it can’t be wrong
Allan called straight away
and the call confirmed it
How much did she owe this guy?
“THAT” I’m not interested to find out
ever since we chased her out of the house 8years ago
We do not want to be associated with her anymore!
Even though the blood in my veins tells me that it can never happen
So whenever debtors came
our response is the same

It used to be
“She is the ex-owner of this house, we do not know where she is.”
Yesterday was the first time we said “SHE IS DEAD! Go get your money from her grave.”
And we hung up the phone.

NEVER WILL I EVER LET THEM KNOW
She is my mother and I’m her daughter
NEVER!!!!
I have been paying for her debts all my life
Even now!
Because we wanted to clear ALL HER DEBTS once and for all
We bought over her house, THIS HOUSE
Which was already fully paid up long ago by my dad
I could have just TOOK OVER without strings attached

Instead
to find that 5 figure amount
to pay off her debts from loansharks
from relatives
from friends
from acquaintances
we ended up RE-paying for this house
the only condition was
She must stop her visits to the mahjong table

The 3ft by 3ft table that took my mother from me
ever since she brought me home for good at the age of 5
I spend my childhood listening to the shuffles of the tiles
sitting on the sofa in some aunties’ house
watching cartoon from noon till sun set

After school
I was ordered NOT TO GO HOME
or my dad would know
I had to spend my after-school hours in those aunties’ house
Not allowed to take my books out
cos it was a taboo
“Book” spoken in Mandarin/Cantonese is the same as “Lose”
So I had to wait till almost 8pm
when I’m home
before I could wrestle with my piles of homework
and handle the accusation from my dad that I was an insensible girl
‘Cos my mother told me to lie
to say we went out shopping

She is such a liar
she is such an actress
she has NOTHING GOOD except her mouth!
you CAN NEVER imagine the extend of her lies… her acts of deceit
Only God knows
Only her 2 daughters know
Only her hubby who died of heart attack
cos his weak heart couldn’t tolerate another test of mistrust
Yes, my dad’s heart surrendered to his unrepentant wife

the birth of my sis saved me
I could go home after school now
for the simple reason:-
to free my mother from my baby sis
I had to be my sis’s care-taker, her 2nd-mother
so that my mother could join her 3 friends at that mahjong table again

3 years!
3 years she has been in her urn
WHY CAN’T THE PAST JUST DIE WITH HER????!!!
Damn It!!!

The thing is…
after so long…
my dark childhood still comes back and haunt me…

What guarantee do I have that there will NOT be a second, a third, a fourth????
Its just a note this time round
but there are those unreasonable ones,
not so ‘gentle’ ones
who would come hounding at my door at 3am
or there would be some
who would splash paint or animal blood on my door
without warning, without clarifying first
The loansharks came last night
are they coming again tonight? tomorrow? next week? next month?

WHEN?
tell me WHEN??? WHEN WILL ALL THESE STOP…
I’m choking on my tears as I type this down
I hate it!!!!
I hate it!!!! I really do!!!!
I hate my childhood!
I hate to be M.T.’s daughter
I hate to be known as W.L.

W.L.
a name that she used so often
to help her get money from anyone
I, since young
was her best story ever told
was the best lie she ever fabricated
“My daughter W.L., doesn’t have pocket money to bring to school”
“W.L. doesn’t have enough to buy the textbooks for the new term”
“W.L. needs money so that she can get a new schoolbag”

LIES LIES LIES!
I started working as a private tuition teacher to my neighbour’s kids when I was 12!
Mind you! 12!!!!
I supported myself
I supported her gambling losses
Wherever she gets her money from, she gambles away
Whenever she gambled away the money given by dad to pay for the water-electrical bills
She will come to me
scraping off whatever I had earned and from the pocket money I received from my dad

you know my frustration?
you feel my pain?
how come the past doesn’t die even though she is dead???!!!!

Yes, I hear your question
“Why did the loansharks come back again after 3 years?”

I have an explanation that may shock you
my mom used other people’s Identity Cards to borrow too
Why did she do that?
Cos we confiscated her IC
Yes, an act that we could be jailed for
Yet, we can’t think of another way to stop the borrowing
But the woman found her way through those old aunties
whose number of white hair have outgrown the greys

One of them was so pissed
when my mother did not pay the loansharks as promised
(she didn’t know my mother NEVER KEEPS HER PROMISES)
and the loansharks came splashing paint on the poor woman’s house
the old woman couldn’t lift her head to face anyone in her neighborhood
who did not even take a cent from the borrowing
She in her 60s took off her pants
URINATED AT MY DOOR STEPS!
a display of her frustration

Many called them
“Brainless”
“Naive”
“Stupid”

But I tell you
No.
They are not
You will know till you meet my mother
too bad, she has turned to ashes
A woman of great talents
put to wrong use
A woman who has endless ways to hypnotize you
So as to empty your wallet for her

She did it to everyone
She told the same lie to my friends and forced them to keep it a secret
I hate to be pitied
I never liked to be pitied on
especially when those were lies!!!
My friends were so young, in their 14-15
and she took advantage of our friendship
to get her gambling capital

She approached my teachers
She went to my boyfriend’s parents
Whoever that seemed to know me had been on her list

And those who did not know me too…
one day a man called
“Hi, are you W.L.? Is your mother M.T.? She came into my clinic and borrowed $$$, she told me she needed money because of you, I need to check this out. She is right here with me now.”
What do you expect me to say?
What should I say?
I should be enjoying my childhood in light, in truth
but THIS WAS HOW I had to lie
in order to win my mother’s love
How?!!!!

YOU TELL ME!!!! how?!!

another day passed
another call came
“Hi, I’m so-and-so, are you W.L.? Is your mother M.T.? I met her at the busstop, she took $$$$ from me. She said if she didn’t call me a month later, I can call this number and look for you to get my money back.”
WHAT THE F***!!!!

My house phone number has been changed 7 times in 5 years
That was the beginning of my life…
my mother borrowed
I re-payed

She took my love for granted
She took my childhood away
She broke my trust more than a trillion times

I couldn’t
I dare not lift up my head
in fear of being spotted by one of the gambling aunties
“Where is your mother? I need to get my money back!”

I didn’t even know that I’ve kept my eyes on the ground all these years unknowingly till one of my neighbours commented.
“Why do you always look at the floor when you walk?”
It was my walking posture for more than 20years
Ashamed
Afraid
‘Hiding’

My heart went numb
all the while
till that last straw that broke the wall
SHE PESTERED Allan’s parents at their Hawker Stall
I WAS NOT EVEN MARRIED TO ALLAN YET!!!!

Yes, we were talking about marriage
but even so, does it give you the right to pester my future parents-in-law 3 times at the place they work?
Each time asking for a thousand
Each time, refused to leave till the money is in your hands
What a pest you are!

You frightened away my boyfriends
Now you wanna ruin my possible marriage? my happiness?
my only escape from your clutches?

THAT WAS IT!
I had enough!
We made her sign a CONTRACT
“Never shall you borrow again. Never gamble again. Or you will lose your 2 daughters”
Signed. All 3 of us.
No mother would do that right?

Wrong!!!!!
3 months later!!!!
She went back to her old ways
We chased her out of the house

Gave her allowances every month
by passing money through a counseling group
no counseling came to a good end by the way
I supported her
even though she betrayed me a zillion times

It carried on for a year
then she disappeared
no one knew where she went

I never bothered to find her
my heart was dead

my aunties said I’m un-filial
my cousins said I’m a beast
my friends said I’m heartless

so using my body to shield her from the punches from my dad
is NOT GOOD ENOUGH?
so forgiving her every time she said sorry but didn’t mean it
is NOT GENEROUS ENOUGH?
so emptying my wallet, that I may not have any money to buy food from school is NOT LOVING ENOUGH?
How much MORE do I need to be tested, before such titles are unlabeled from my forehead?

that’s ok
call me what you want
give me names
it was only when I’ve STOPPED pleasing my mother
Stopped pleasing everyone around me
that I’m able to live
to breathe
to be free

Some say I should never blog about this
I NEVER WANTED TO
Not in such details
but the note from yesterday
was a chance for me to tell my sons the truth
why I didn’t shed a tear
nor felt an ache in my heart
when she was pushed into the fire

I hated my life when she was alive
but I had never cursed her
like the way she cursed me
“Its my retribution” She said.
“I treated your granny badly and now its your turn to do so to me…the day you become a mother, you will know how hurtful your actions are…when your children do the same to you…..”
She cursed me
She wanted me to have my retribution
I feared
till this day

Remember?
I’ve been struggling… how am I going to tell my kids about my relationship with my mom?
THIS!
THE NOTE!
AFTER 3 YEARS!
is a chance
to write… to let them know…
in case I can’t get the words out of my mouth, I had to blog

I’m in tears throughout this post
they can’t stop flowing
I feel like I’m back to where I was when dad was still around
I just can’t stop crying
I’m really upset beyond words
I can’t describe exactly how I feel
I just wish I could disappear from this house of awful memories right now
I’ve stopped asking ‘whys’ so long ago
no point asking why

I used to hid myself under the blanket, in sweat, very still and sob till i fall asleep
almost every night
Quietly, so that my dad wouldn’t hear and scold me for being a cry-baby
now, I’m doing it in the open
but still I had to keep my sobbing volume down
so pain
so hard
so tough
so restrained
I want to CRY OUT LOUD!!!
really loud!!!

And so it was said
THE TRUTH SHALL SET YOU FREE
This post is for my boys to read
when they are big enough
when they really want the truth between me and their granny
when they are wise enough to know what forgiveness and hatred is

then they shall decide
if they want to make my mother’s curse come true
till then…
this post shall be here….waiting…for their eyes