The Timeless Piece

For the past two days I went through a lot of mood changes. It swung high, putting me on the top of Mt Kinabalu. It swung low, putting me to ocean deep. It all started with taking of family photos on Friday night. A journalist in my own organization, an international photographer popped into my office on Thursday afternoon and said, "Daughter is leaving the nest soon, can I take the family photographs for you?"

I was very touched by his offer and he has even made it clear that it's free. It's business. It's friendship. He has not been taking studio photography for a while and only takes for good friends. I count myself blessed!

Taking family photographs has an uncanny ability to resurrect memories in the tender spots of my deep down soul. It's just like those missing from the reunion table. The persons missing from the family photographs - those who had been called back to the Lord.

I had not quite gotten over it when Uncle Lee posted this piece, I Want My Mummy. The reading really transported me to the roads of the memory of my mum.

You could have probably read the post of the two watches (picture above) that I treasured. Yesterday, I gave one of the watches to Rachel, my daughter who will be leaving the nest soon. She has chosen the "silver" piece.

As I gave the treasured watch to Rachel, I remember my mum and there was this inexpressible gratitude to mum for seeing me through those days of unending fertility treatments and those 99 days in hospital while having Rachel. How could I ever thank her enough for such love?

Here is the memory of my mum (re-cycled). Pardon me, many events really bring back this special surge of poignancy...

Time and Eternity
Last year, I remembered my mother with the warmth of home. Today, still very much at home, both the present experience and also in anticipation of the coming experience of at home with the Lord. In time and eternity, I remember my mother.

On 19th June, 2000, my mother returned into the arms of the Lord. It was her birthday. It was two weeks after I lost my third child, 8-week only baby, terminated because it was an ectopic pregnancy. When I returned from Singapore after the surgery, my mother asked, “Is it painful?” There she was, her frail body lay there, ravaged by the disease, she still asked her darling daughter whether it was painful.

She slipped back into semi-consciousness as her spent body continued to battle the disease that was to take her to meet her master in heaven. The only word that could aptly describe her was PEACE. It was a peace that transcended understanding.

The last words she said was she was in her Church when I sang hymns and said prayers at her bed side.

My heart broke though I knew she had given her hands to Jesus …

My mother left a watch for me. It was the watch that I bought for her as a gift on Mothers’ Day in 1989 while we were in Singapore. It was the most decent watch she had ever owned. She treasured it. When it was passed to me, it was as shiny as new. But the watch stopped working just within days that I put it on. It just went dead. I was desperate. I visited shops after shops, the answer - beyond repair.

I was very, very upset and even angry. I cried to the Lord. Lord, why did you give and then take away? You gave me a baby in an answered prayer, you took the baby back. You gave me a loving mother, you took her back when I had just lost my baby. And now even a watch to remember my mother, you took it back!

The Lord spoke, my child, I know exactly the grief that is in your heart. Remember that like you, I too lost My Son!

It was at that moment I seemed to see my mother celebrated her birthday in heaven. At the glimpse of heavenly birthday party, I knew my mother was in a better home that there would be no more pain, no more sufferings and no more tears. I knew my baby was in the best home and in the best pairs of hands.

I wiped my tears and moved on, but never quite get over with the “timeless piece”, the watch. I began to shop for watches. Everywhere I travelled, every magazine I got hold of, I looked for watches. Until, I found this watch that resembled the one I gave to my mother …

I fell in love with it immediately. I seemed to see the image of my mother through it. I bought it - the most expensive watch I have ever owned. My mother left with her children a treasured legacy of “living within means”. She is a living example of a wonderful chorus that I still hum to myself -

This world is not my home
I’m just a-passing through
My treasures are laid up
Somewhere beyond the blue
The angels beckon me
From heavens open door
And I can’t feel at home
in this world anymore.

But, this watch is like a time machine that I would buy for my mother if there is one and no matter how much it costs me - to help me travel back to the times of joys and tears with her.

Those times of tapping rubber and collecting latex in the rubber garden. Those times of tending the vegetable garden. Those times of washing and cleaning along the magnificent Betang Rejang. Those times of sitting at the wharf during sunset at Balingian. Those times in Sarikei. Those times when she read the Chinese Bible and would ask me the meaning (My mother had never been to school, but she could read the Chinese Bible!) Those times in Singapore. Those times in Singapore General Hospital when I waited in anticipation every morning. Those times walking down Paterson Road to Scotts Road to Orchard Road. Even that fateful night we went to buy a burger that landed me in SGH for 99 days. ….

This watch reminds me the Present. This moment I am in where I looked into the past joys and tears with my mother. This moment I am in where I look into the Future, the unseen and unknown, yet I know my mother is there waiting for me.

This watch reminds me of something that lies beyond time. Something so beautiful and vast and breathtaking that only eternity is big enough to contain it.

This watch will be with me to travel into future - a destination called eternity.

For my mother, I bought the timeless piece in gold. I have since stopped shopping for watches. Then, why two watches? Two weeks ago, I was shopping for a watch for my daughter and saw this silver one. I could not resist buying it!

I am early this year. Because I am standing tiptoe at Present looking into the Future while remembering the past.

Here’s a poem written for my mother (with much help from a friend) -

I know you’ve found a place,
much better than where,
we lived as family in warm embrace -
so why is my heart still bleeding to care?

I know you’ve found new friends there,
whose company you gladly share,
like those days when we stood for each other -
so why do I still yearn for you hither?

I know happy memories should suffice,
and I’ve them aplenty,
of moments you touched me deeply -
so why for more do I still crave and insist?

I know you lived a good life of seventy-three,
as a mother and teacher you nurtured me,
you were my clutch to trudge over difficulties -
so am I selfish to wish you live seventy-four or more?

I know you still love me - deep and tender,
but deeper and tenderer is my love for you, my mother,
I wish I had said it many times over when I should -
tell me mother, it’s not too late - show me how I could.