Decades of Memories - Part I
Its was at the first light on a August morning during the mid 1970s when this boy came into the world. With clenched fists he wailed.. Did he cried to proclaim his victory that he finally made it to existence or to protest his deliverance into such chaotic and messed up world? No one knows either..
In that room of Alexandra Hospital that day, he finally made his entrance into the world.
That little boy grew up quickly and healthy, was seen as a hyper active baby and a very curious one too.. always smiling and restless.. He picked up walking faster than expected... He wanted to go places.. He was getting stronger by the day...
Untill one day, at the tender age of one, he fell sick. He was running a high temperature fever, his mum brought him to the doctors but the fever didn't recede. So his mum seeked help from relatives.. they told her to get antelope's horn shavings and boiled it with water, because antelope's horn were known to cure high fever. So she went ahead and fed the little boy with that, true enough, the fever stopped. But something else creeped in.. the medication his mum gave was too strong that it the little boy suffered coughs.. coughs that lasted for weeks.. That boy was later diagnosed asthmatic and for years to come he would carry that problem with him and hope that it'll be cured someday.
Kindergarten years was fast for him, he left a year early because he passed a certain test that year to qualify him for primary school.. So he didn't remember much of his friends for that short one year.
Growing up in the primary school for the little boy wasn't easy at all.. he had been told by his mum and the teachers in schools not to go running around with the rest of the kids during P.E lessons or recess times when everyone was playing catching or hide-and-seek, he would be the that fat little kid sitting by the corner of the field watching the rest of the kids playing. He wasn't allowed to eat cold stuffs like ice-creams or fruits, or drink cold soft drinks. He knew he couldn't run or eat and drink cold stuffs, he would suffer an asthma attack if he were to exert too much of his weak congested lungs.. but deep inside him he wanted so much to be able to run like the rest of them.. up and down the field, playing, getting dirt and mud of the face and the school shoes.. chasing the stray cats and dogs across the open carpark, climbing the monkey ladders behind the school.. all these he couldn't even do one.. all he could do was to stare enviously at them..
At that time, the little boy prayed that if one day he would be cured of that illness, he would want to be an athlete, a sportsman.. He want to run like the wind and jump like the bunny. He wanted to be healthy like the rest of the kids in the field.. That prayer was made everytime he sat alone by the corner of the field watching the other kids played.
He was nine years old when he broke a bone of his right forearm while playing at home with his younger brother.. they were playing a spinning game where they would twirl themselves around and tried walking straight after that.. it was fun for both of them untill that little boy slammed his right arm against the edge of the wall after tripping over a stool. He was petrified when he heard that snapping sound of his arm.. He was in shock when he couldn't move his fingers at all.. tremendous pain engulfed him when he tried to move his right arm... His mum rushed back home from work after his neighbours called up, with teary eyes she reprimanded him for being naughty.. He was sent to General Hospital and came back with a cast in an overhead sling.. because of his condition he needed someone to look after during the day when his mum was away at work, so he and his younger brother were left at his granny's to be taken care of by her..
There he started to learn about the world.
Life was tough for the little boy when he was staying with his granny, he's the second eldest among the grandkids that was taken care by her, but he wasn't the favourite one, instead he was the beaten one most of the time.. he'll get blamed for things that he didn't do, punished for someone else's mistakes.. He and his younger brother was the labeled as the black sheeps in the kids..
All because his granny didn't like them. Not because they are naughty, its because they are poor.
The little boy's family was poor, mum had to work as a cleaner in Pulau Bukom refinery in order to support the family, dad worked as a ceiling labourer and was in and out of job most of the time.. and because they didn't earn much they couldn't afford much to give to granny for taking care of the two sons.. and granny wasn't too happy about that, even more so were the rest of the relatives whose kids were taken care by granny too..
The rest of the relatives looked down upon them, they said that the little boy and his younger brother were bad influences to the rest of the grandkids.. They started to instill ideas and thoughts to granny, asking her to stop taking care of them and to send them home because they didn't want their kids to mix around with the little boy and his younger brother. They began to spread bad rumours and backstabbed that little boy's mum to granny.. without even investigating the truth, little boy's gullible granny sent them home, forcing the little boy's mum to terminate her job immediately and lost half a month's salary for that.
His mum was devastated, his mum was angry.. but his mum was strong and determined. That if no one would want to help her, she would do it on her own.. and that was what she did.. She found a job quickly in a electronic production factory around their neighbourhood and she worked midnight shift permanently so that she could take care of the little boy and his younger brother in the day.. She would take up home based part time job from factories below their one room HDB flat in Redhill Close such as card box folding, ball-point pens riveting, labels pasting on pen caps.. anything that could bring home extra cash she took up.. and sometimes the little boy and his younger brother would stay up late at nights when his mum was off from the electronic factory to help her out in the jobs..
Life was tough back then... but it was fun.. to do things together as a family, the little boy was happy.. even though he didn't have alot of toys or hand held computer games to play with.. he was contented with his old Batman and He-man figurine which his neighbour's kid didn't want it and passed it to him.. He would spend his days with his younger brother playing the imagination game or the fighting game with those.. Because he couldn't go out and play much he spent most of his time at home watching television.. He got shortsightedness at the age of ten, and spectacles was his friend ever since then..
One fine Saturday afternoon, the little boy brought home a pair of cute fluffy chicks from a school excursion to a poultry farm in Lim Chu Kang... he had never kept chicks in his entire ten years of his life, it was a very incredible experience for him.. He named them Chicky and Chickadee.. That was how he became an animal lover after keeping the chicks.. sadly, the chicks grew up and ended on the dinner table by his mum, that evening when the little boy came home from school, he refused to eat dinner and cried the entire night over it.
It was late in the night on the little boy's eleven years old birthday when his dad came home drunk. His dad had been out of job for a long time and he was not bringing home money to support the family.. He came home drunk nights after nights.. sometimes he didn't even came home.. His dad develop the habit shortly after he loses his previous job and had bad company of friends asking him out.. He was gambling, drinking, even on dope. That night he came back drunk as usual and got into a fight with little boy's mum.. It started out from verbal abuses.. and it slowly turned violent.. Little boy knows that his dad was not just drunk from alcohol, he was high on dope too, he knew because he seen his dad in that state too many times. But this time was different, the argument went ugly with little boy's dad picking up the chopper and pressing against his mum's neck.. little boy cried and kneeled down besides his dad legs clinging on to them begging his dad not to do it, pleading him to put down the weapon.. Time froze for that moment.. his dad threw down the chopper and went packing his bags.. He took off for three months.. Little boy didn't know where he went, he didn't know when will his dad come back.. all he saw was his mum crying late at night alone by the kitchen window, and the loan sharks that came up to look for his dad.. Little boy's family was falling apart.. because of gambling, drinking, and drugs. The little boy hated all of it since. He swore not to be like his dad when he grew up.
Throughout his twelve years of life, the little boy was under strict supervision by his mum. Because his mum had high expectations from him as being the eldest son in the family. She wants him to set a good example for his younger brother.. and discipline from her were harsh.. Canes were always the solutions to disciplinary problems.. Little boy detested cane system alot.. a hell lot... because he would go to school with bruises and cuts all over his body, due to the caning session the day before from his mum for being naughty or not listening to her.. his classmates would look curiously at wounds on him and wonder how he got them.. the little boy would be laughed at by them for the wounds.. but its because of the rod.. that little boy didn't go astray.. but it was a painful way to learn.
It was two days after his twelve years old birthday when his mum made him a bowl of tonic soup.. it contained a drumstick and plenty of Chinese herbs, the soup was dark in colour and had certain herbal fragrance to it. His mum told him to drink up and finish the drumstick.. He was delighted and finished the entire bowl.. when his mum revealed to him it was actually tonic soup with bat's meat, the little boy nearly vomited all out.. but it was too late then.. little did he realised that the bowl of soup was the answer to his prayer when he sat alone at the field watching the kids play. That bowl of bat's meat soup cured the asthma in him. Since then he would not have any relapse of asthma. He would not need to rush to hospital for Ventolin inhalant whenever the weather turn cold. He would not need to wait eagerly in his bed when he was hospitalised for his granny who wouldn't show up for a week even though she lived just four bus stops away from the hospital. He would not need to sit by the corner of the field and envied the kids running up and down. He would fulfill his dreams of being a athlete, a sportsman.. because he was given a chance in his life to be able to run.. to be healthy again.
PSLE came that year and when little boy's mum collected the results nervously, she was delighted that her eldest son had scored 4 As and was able to get into the secondary school that she had chosen for him.. She was truly happy that day, little boy saw it in her eyes.. He saw her teared with joy in her eyes at the school hall that day.. He would never forget that for the rest of his life. He had showed it to those who looked down on them. He proved to them that he was the 4 As student. He achieved what he wanted to do.
Life took a great turn in the boy's life when he started secondary school..
There he started to experience the world.
(To be continue in Part II.. Stay tune..)