Happy Birthday, mum!
“And how old are we this year?” Dr Lee, the neurologist, asked when we brought mother to see her last Friday.
“79,” I replied.
To be exact, 79 today.
Happy Birthday, mum!
Actually, for a long time, mother didn’t know her date of birth. Well, she knew her Chinese lunar birth date, but not the English equivalent. Then one day many years ago, I read in the local tabloid about a service that could help determine an English birth date based on the Chinese one. So I sent in mother’s Chinese birthdate and a while later, the answer was published in that section of the newspaper. I cut it out and carried it in my pencil box for years. Unfortunately, I don’t have it anymore.
So now, we know both her Chinese and English birth dates. But it wasn’t added to her identity papers. And when we went to apply for our new identity cards, some smart aleck in the IC Department decided mother’s birthdate to be 26 January 1926. Our mistake for not adding it in years before, and also for not checking the new IC before accepting it.
Well, it doesn’t really matter. It’s just words on paper. Meanwhile, she turns 79 today.
