mother's day!

well, today mother's day was celebrated all around the world! well, i know that @ least australia and hong kong have the same mother's day, but different father's days. ours is during september, while i think the hong kong father's day's during may.
having earned some income through tutoring over the past few months, i asked mother to please gimme an extra fifty bucks when i hit garden city shopping centre with my carer/life coach/support worker/whatever they're called now :P on thursday so i could buy her a decent mother's day present. but she had another suggestion:"why don't you take the border's gift voucher someone gave you for your birthday this year and buy me a present from borders instead?" she's smart, my mother. obviously, she didn't want me to buy her sth pig-related (poor mother has always been called 'PIG mum' by father and i. i learnt it off dad when i was very young, and dad's excuse for calling mother PIG mum was coz she was born in the chinese new year of the pig. :P).
so off to borders i went. @ the front counter, i asked a cashier where they kept the mother's day gifts. first of all, she pointed me out to an array of diaries and calendars, but i said, "please, we're almost halfway through the year, i don't want to get her a diary/calendar!" so she directed me to the back wall, along the most left aisle from the store, and i picked up two nice books for her there. then i went to stacks, where i picked up this really cute mother's day card and bag to store the books that i'd bought for mother. finally, over a mcflurry with oreo cookies, i wrote out the card to mother, then got dad to sign the card once i got home. my dad's so romantic, he even drew love hearts all over the card. :)
@ our church, every year, two youths, one boy and one girl, are asked to speak about their parent, and this year, i was chosen! uncle phillip just told me to talk for about five minutes, and just reminded me to finish my speech with thanking my mother for being such an awesome mother.
well, mother tells me that several years ago, she had helped me write a similar script, but for dad. this time, coz i was writing about mother, i couldn't jolly well ask her for help to write it! instead, i gave ngan (one of my carers from vietnam) a quick run-through, which she approved of.
fiona and julz helped me up the three steps to the stage, then i just sat down on a chair.
uncle stephen chan introduced the day, then handed me the microphone.
i started by explaining that i owed my life to mother, in more than how everyone owed their existence to their mum and dad having intercourse. :P see, about one week before i was due to be born, my mother went to see a doctor and said, "doctor, my baby isn't kicking anymore. sth's wrong." the doctor felt mum's tummy, then said, "nah, don't worry, mrs. chan. your baby's coming out in about one week or so." but my mother was INSISTENT that there was sth definitely wrong with her baby (me) and she explained to the doctor, "see, my baby usually has a morning routine. around 7/8am, she awakes, has a stretch and kick, then returns to sleep. but this week, she's been moving less and less and less, until this morning, when i decided to come see you, all i felt was just one tiny little nudge. so there's definitely sth wrong with my baby, doctor, and you'd better find out what." the doctor was like, "okay, okay, if you're gonna fret so much, we'll hook you up to a monitor and listen to your baby's heartrate for one hour." and @ the end of that one hour, the doctor came back and apologised. "sorry, mrs. chan, you were correct. please call your husband. it's an emergency. your baby's gotta come out NOW." see, what they'd heard from the monitor was that my heartrate had PLUMMETED, meaning, even when i was still inside mum's tummy, i was such a messy sleeper i had wriggled and squirmed around so much that i'd caught my umbilical cord around my neck and was CHOKING myself. o_O
anyways, mother fasted for several hours, went into the operating theatre, and whoosh! i came out. :)
fast forward about three point five years. we'd just come to brisbane, and my parents had enrolled me into childcare while they went to TAFE to learn english. after about the first week, the teachers said to mother, 'mrs. chan, you need to give your daughter an english name, coz for the life of us, we can't pronounce her chinese name." my chinese name is 'tsz yin', more easily pronounced as 'zee yin'.
anyways, we had a bilingual english-chinese dictionary, @ the back of which was a list of boys and girls names. mother read those out to me. "A ... April."
"nup."
'b... belinda."
"nope."
"c... catherine."
"don't like it."
"d... dora."
"next."
"e... emily."
"yup, i like that one. don't need to say anymore." :P mother also liked emily coz in canto, it's roughly translated into "oi mei lai," which means "loves beauty" and, by all accounts, i was quite the beauty queen when i was little!
anyways, i went through primary school, where i met my australian godmother, who told mother to lemme sit the scholarship exam for two private schools. "but we can't afford sending her to a private school!" mother protested. my australian godmother just replied, "let her take a scholarship exam for the schools. i'm sure she'd get one."
so i sat the exam, and was called in for an interview with both schools. @ the redeemer one, the headmaster told me, "we're willing to offer emily a 45% bursary."
"sweet," i thought,"i only haveta pay 55% school fees!" then, @ the canterbury one, the headmaster told me, "we're willing to offer emily a half scholarship."
'even better!" i thought. "let's go to canterbury, then." but mother was even smarter. she leaned forward and challenged the headmaster, "so what? redeemer's already offered her a forty-five percent bursary. you're only offering her five more percent, i may as well just let her attend redeemer."
the headmaster and the dean of studies looked @ each other, then reconsidered. "in that case ... we'd be willing to give emily TWO half scholarships."
mother drove me home, then said the decision was mine. where did i want to go? 'don't be stupid, mother," i told her, "of COURSE i'll go to canterbury! no school fees"
"but all your friends are attending redeemer," mother warned me."
'so? @ redeemer, they haveta attend some MONTH-long camp. i don't wanna be separated from you and dad for that long!"
so to canterbury college i went.
all was well until 2007. i'd graduated with an O.P1, had studied two years of an arts/law degree and had just begun my first paid job as a woolies checkout chic.
then, disaster struck. i suddenly collapsed one morning, and, rushed to the hospital, i was diagnosed with a brain tumour. >< operations, complications and more operations followed. basically, the doctors told my parents i'd never walk again, to just send me to a hospital, lemme rot and die (okay, so they didn't exactly say the rot and die part, but i'm sure you get my point. :P).
luckily, being an only kid, my parents chose to take me home and now, despite the doctor's predictions, i can walk/hobble/stagger/limp/you choose a verb :P with short distances.
but i owe a HUGE apology to mother! see, when i was recovering in the rehab ward, she came to visit me one afternoon, and we were chatting for awhile, when suddenly, i asked her, "umm ... do you know where my mum is?"
"do you know who i am?" she countered.
"sure!"
'who am i, then?"
"you're aunty ling!" (which is correct, my mother's name is ling.) anyways, she went to the loo after that, and when she came back, i said, "hi, mum!" like nothing had ever happened.
BUT THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN!!! ><
"umm ... do you know where my mum is?"
"do you know who i am?"
"sure!"
'who am i, then?"
"you're aunty ling!"
but this time, mother continued the conversation. "and does aunty ling have any kids?"
"yup."
"what?"
"she's got one daughter."
"and what's her daughter's name?"
'emily."
"and what's your name?"
"emily."
'so...?"
'so what?"
'I'M YOUR MOTHER, YOU IDIOT!!!"
lol, mother says she didn't call me an idiot, but i'm sure you get the point. :P
but sadly, life has also become ridiculously difficult for me.
i remember one day, when mother was forcing me to do sth when i turned to her sadly and asked her, "mother, does it really give you that much pleasure to see me sufer so?" and i will never forget her response to me. she said, "YES, IT DOES GIVE ME PLEASURE TO SEE YOU SUFFER."
granted, she did continue on to explain that i must suffer in the short term in order to live an easier life in the long term.
but the most important thing: i just want my mum to know how much i love and appreciate her love and all the help she's given me over the years. THANKS, MUM! I LOVE YOU!!!
next post here ... toms, if i get the time! i still haven't posted about my new glasses yet! righteo, until then!
cheers,
em. ^^