Old Friends
“Do you remember my friend Anne?” I’d asked mother on Saturday evening. Anne, aka mellowbug, had just called and I was going over to see her at her mother’s.
Instead of giving her usual quick “no” , mother actually looked like she was giving it some thought before answering, “Anne? No, I don’t remember her.”
And so it was, on Sunday afternoon, I took Anne to visit mother. From afar, mother saw me, gave me her usual big smile and commented that I was there again. I looked over to Anne who walked up and asked mother if she remembered her.
Looking at her in the face, mother said no. But it didn’t stop her from taking Anne’s arm and caressing it as she chatted away with Anne.
I think if mother were a toddler, I’d have to worry about her over-friendliness and going off with strangers!
It was a short visit but at least Anne, all the way home from Toronto, got to visit mother and to see the living conditions at GT Heritage nursing home.
Anne and I go back all the way to 1979 when I’d started work at my first company and she was already working there. We share a common dialect (Hakka, or Khek), even though mine is Taiboo Hak and hers is Fuichew Hak. Nevertheless, it was something common we shared, which meant she was able to converse with father when she visited, and I likewise with her mother. And despite being Hakka, there are very subtle differences in some of our words, phrases and intonations, which only the older generation, like Anne’s mother, can recognise.
