The women in my life
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Thanks to the reminder from Dina, here’s my tribute to the three most important women in my life.
My mother who left her hometown of Sandakan, Sabah after the second World War (after burying both her adopted parents during the war), sailed to Singapore in search of an uncle, travelled up north when she could not find him, and eventually settled in Kuala Lumpur where, helped by women friends she’d met along the way, she found a place to stay and a job, too, and later met my father, married him, had three children, but continued working till the 1970s when she stopped working outside but came back inside to help my father in the Chinese medicine shop started by my grandfather in the 1930s. Despite an active life, she succumbed to Alzheimer’s a few years ago and now lives in a nursing home where she is well cared for by a team of care givers.
My sister who, when my mother told her I wanted to go to university after being retrenched in the mid-1980s, asked why didn’t I think of it earlier, and went on to support me through my three years at the University of East Anglia in England. If not for her, I would still be a katak di bawah tempurung.
And then there was our nanny who had to come out to work after her husband squandered the family fortune and ran away, leaving her to look after three small children (he returned later), was introduced to my mother who was looking for someone to care for her first-born while she went to work, and went on to look after the two who came later. Nanny was more “mother” to us than our real mother was, but in the process, neglected her own children when they needed her most. She lived with us until the mid-1970s before moving in with her eldest daughter and family (her reasoning was that she better spend time with her own family while she was still able-bodied to help them in any way, instead of waiting till she got too frail to be anything but a burden to them). We kept in touch with Nanny; she would visit and stay a few days now and then. She was with us when I flew off to England for my studies and had told me she might never see me again (she was in her 70s by then), but was one of the first persons I saw when I stepped into the shop on my two visits home. She passed away in 1996.
And then there are all the wonderful women I’ve met along the way. Some have exited my life, others have stayed, and a few have left more than an impression. No names, except maybe for one …
Beth Chin in Turners Falls, MA!
Love ya, Beth.
