| 0250h [260501]
Feeling... tired Happiness of the day: Going back to hwachong and chatting with my ex-bio-teacher for an hour. Event of the week: a class gathering at my house the coming weekend I'm worried for my mom. She's falling sick...not in the horrible drastic way, but I can feel her being increasingly unhealthy. and older. like I've mentioned, she's got diabetes now, which can be so serious, if we're not careful. while I'm here, I have to make sure she takes her medication. She's always had rheumatism, which is bad because her joints ache when it's too humid, and knowing Singapore, it's too often. Just a couple of days ago, her doctor recommended that she see an eye specialist, because her right eye vision is going. mom very nonchalantly said maybe she won't see the specialist, and just let her right eye stay blurred. gotta combine forces with my dad and push my mom into the specialist clinic. I guess i shouldn't be too surprised to see my mom being so unhealthy, because while she's strong in her character, her body has often failed her, this I sort of always knew. plus, she is getting old. but it still hurts me, because to me, my mom is supposed to be infallible. she's supposed to be stronger than me. she's supposed to be supermom. But now, she's just an ordinary woman who happens to be my mom. she falls sick so easily, she's grown old. don't tell me it's natural she's grown old, or that everyone grows older every second. Yes, I know. But try seeing your mom only once or twice a year - it does things to your sense of time, your perception. Maybe it's her health giving her problems, I don't know, but my mom doesn't seem happy either. This is so different from the last time I was back in Singapore, about a year ago. My impression, my mom was chirpier and more talkative then. She smiled so much more. Since I touched down almost 2 weeks ago, I've not heard my mom laugh. I went out with her today, and I tried telling her funny stories, tried teasing her, tried cheering her up. But she barely smiled too. I wish my mom could smile more. She's a beautiful woman when she smiles, when her eyes sparkle. I think she's working too hard. I mean, her tuition schedule doesn't seem very heavy, as compared to her tougher times when she commuted to work in Malaysia. But now, with her aches and pains, it would be so much better if she doesn't teach so many kids. At least this is one difference I know, between now and a year ago - she's teaching more tuition now, for what reason I don't know. But it's not like I can tell her not to work, because I'm sure she has her reasons. I wish I'm working now, so I can give her some money and she won't feel like she's depending too much on dad. i wish I have enough savings to share with her. I wish I'm working now, so she doesn't feel responsible for me. sigh. I don't think my mom's actually unhappy, I just think she's too tired to smile, maybe even too tired to feel happy or unhappy. There's a chinese saying, shu yu jing er feng bu zhi, zi yu yang er qing bu zai which literally translates to say, "like the wind that is no longer calm when the tree wishes to stay still, one's loves ones may not be around when one wishes to serve them." I'm trying my best to be with my mom now, simply cos one's lifetime is a finite number of days and every single day with her is a memory that is going to count. in the past, for a couple of years, she was just a tired woman, everyday. I don't want to relive those days and I think it's time for her to relax. let me be a selfish kid, I want to collect happy memories. What should I do? How should I make her smile? | |