Happy Birthday Mama!
I miss you alot.
From time to time snippets & memories of you float into my mind.
Like how when I was in primary school and I often did my homework in front of the TV while sitting on the floor with my books arranged in a circle around me, with you sitting in your trusty orange armchair (with wooden arms) on my right. You'd have your eyes glued to the TV which was airing some rerun of a Channel 8 drama (and occasionally cursing in Hokkien at the baddie on screen lol). It was you whom I learned some choice Malay & Hokkien cuss words from lol.
Like how I helped you to make kueh pie tee cups from scratch, dipping the metal mould into the flour mix and then quickly dunking the mould into hot oil and finding the right time to flick out the cup and fry it to a crisp.
Like how we squatted in the kitchen to wrap bak zhang. I was too young & too clumsy to know how to hold & fold the bamboo leaves properly but I helped to scoop up the filling & dump it into the small hole you made in the middle of the glutinous rice, and I helped to cover up the filling with more rice too!
Like how you'd make yummy yellow sticky rice with ikan kuning fried to a level of crispiness I cannot imagine, and other lovely side dishes to accompany the rice like egg omlette and sambal ikan bilis.
Like how you'd make your own fermented rice and leave that huge bottle in the fridge...occasionally sipping on the liquid that resulted from it (I didn't know then but I think it might have been some type of rice alcohol.
Like how you always insisted on sleeping on your tilam on the floor next to my bed even though we had a proper pull-out bed for you with a proper thicker mattress. You always said you still preferred to sleep on the floor.
Like how you regaled me with stories of when you were young, or stories from the war, or how life was back then in those days, etc.
I miss you. It's been almost 11 years since you passed.
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