For my parents

image from internet

For my parents


Today, I should be writing stuff like, my blog is a year old, I'm glad I took up blogging, etc, etc. But I did not. Somehow, I keep thinking about my parents. Yes, they were gone, and maybe this being the Chinese 7th Month, my thoughts turned to them.

Back then, they believed that their children should at least be given a decent education. And I am are thankful for that.

My father was a construction worker, later a building sub-contractor. He built some of the offices, schools and homes of this country. I followed him around for a while and knew how tough the job can be.

That is what I remembered him. Tough, yet gentle. Those calloused hands that hammered nails in the hot sun could produce calligraphy so fine on delicate rice paper. Who can forget a father waiting with his son, in the pre-dawn at a bus stop, so that this ten year old kid can safely get on a bus to school? Or the time as a young rebel, I came home after a fight, face all bruised and shirt torn, and he did not say a word but took some oil and rubbed on those wounds. The gesture hurts more than the physical pain.

And my mother, the home keeper, made sure that all of us have a decent meal daily, despite the meagre money they had. Praying to the gods to protect and bless us. she would teach us to be compassionate and humble. In her later life, a stroke incapacipate her, but she never lost her will to live. On the day she died, I was in the ambulance with her, holding her frail hands, wishing that I could have spent more time with her when I was younger.

So all their children had a good education, my siblings are doing very well. Which brings me back to this blog. I would not be able to write this, if not for the foundation my parents built. So, Mum, if you are still alive, you may not understand what I wrote here, but you would have smiled and given me the thumbs up.

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