Tuesday, July 1, 2008

I Appreciate the Tiles that I'm Stepping on.

Born of decent origin and less then fortunate background, she was by no means born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Hardship and sorrow filled her pass, and though she had a happy childhood, that happiness was shortlived.

Equipped with only primary 5 education, she was thrown into the society at the tender of 13; an age where the average kid nowadays would spend time playing with computer games but she was cleaning furniture and washing dirty laundry as a house servant, a hardly glamourous job by far.

The following years of her lives were filled with hard labour, where she worked for a medical company at 14 and in a shoe factory at 15. As dark and gloomy those days were, she didn't find any joy and happiness in her life at that time.

And to make matters worse, she was thrown into the early commitment of marriage at what seemingly early age of 18, an age that the people of today find taboo to even talk about marriage.
Maybe life would improve after marriage, she insisted.

But it didn't.

She had to go back into the workforce at 18, this time as a factory worker in a socket manufacturing plant. "Sweat-shops" were an understatement in those working conditions.

Day and night, she worked for far too many hours and was paid far too little then she deserved. Whats more, being an expectant mother at that time, life was hardly a bed of roses for her; it was pure hell.

Tears and sorrow often accompanied her meals, of which she ate alone. The lack of nutrition and the lack of love and support from her "family" contributed to that; Her immediately family was located all the way in Malaysia and was brought to Singapore for the sole reason of marriage. With no support and terrible standard of life, it was no doubt that life to her was a burden.

The government evicted a series of attap houses to make way for future developments and to improve the standard of living for its citizens as a whole in the early 1970s. Naturally, she had to pay an upfront amount of money for her flat as well as the renovations. For a Mother with 3 kids at that time, it was clearly a huge burden and hardship to endure.

She could be considered the sole breadwinner of the family and she remembered distinctively that she paid for the entire marble flooring of her apartment, articulating the whole process with tears glimmering in her eyes, as if reflecting and illustrating the amount of hardship she went through.

This is the very same apartment that she still lived in today, the same apartment that I'm living in today.

My God Mum, a Mother to me. And this is but only a fraction of her life story...

*

The above narrative is a recount that I'm inspired to do, in due time. I need feedback and responses, about how do you guys, my readers, feel about this narrative.

I found it significantly moving and it hit me hard emotionally, on a personal level, as the narrative revolves around my God Mum and her rather hard and tragic life story.

What started out as a casual conversation about my school work, soon unraveled into an inspiring and touching life story on her side. I was utterly stunned about what I've learnt about her and was emotionally affected; she rarely opened up in such a way.

Constructive comments are encouraged, from you, my readers, regardless of its nature.

I hope this short "preview" has touched you guys as much as it did for me. Let us reflect on how fortunate we are in the world and appreciate what we have.

So I hope to hear from you, my readers. Be sure to check back for article updates and stay sharp.

Cya'll later.

3 comments:

The Daily Chronicles said...

epic post, im touched, seriously.

respect.

Anonymous said...

Your mum's gonna be so touched by this.

Do one for dad maybe??

To be fair??

HAHA. Your choice.

HuSaYn a.K.a stERe0 said...

A very inspiring and touching post. Keep the articles going dude!