Nightmare on mum

I had a nightmare last night. In it, a rather weak mum insisted on driving me. She took control of the steering wheel and drove unsteadily uphill for a long time, sometimes way too slow for the traffic as many cars where whizzing past ours. Suddenly, the vehicle swerved out of control and plunged downslope making a unbelievable u-turn. There was darkness and when I came about, I noticed my mum was dead and I was totally unhurt.

This frightening dream seemed to relate to my mum's illness. She was progressing rather slowly for a long time fighting the cancer battle. Although she was greatly weakened by the various chemotherapy and other treatments, she was fiercely independent to the end. Just like the vehicle in the dream, her illness took a sudden turn for the worse since the beginning of this year 2008. Suddenly, my mum is gone.

Well through out my life, mum was always telling me stories about her childhood, some dating and early family life. It troubled her greatly as she did not know for sure who her real parents were having been adopted by our "maternal grandma". From what I was informed, that grandma had miscarried and her husband died in the same year. My mum was given away to her to comfort her by a doctor's family of many children. However, Kim Po, my mum's foster aunt in law, an elderly in her 80s gave a totally different version altogether. There was no doctor dad in the picture but a "gangsterly" mum who chose to abandon my mum at a young age. So my mum was given the chinese name meaning "grace" and "prosperity"

Although she was adopted into Kim Po's family by default since Kim Po's husband's family was very distantly related to that grandma, God had provided mum well with in a loving family environment with many young "cousins" to play and grow up with. She was also given a good education up to Pre-u level. As a young girl of 9 she started various operations to remove some cysts behind her ear. This congentital problem gave her much pain and stress. Every year the cyst would erupt like a huge pimple and spew forth pus and blood. Before the cysts would burst , there would be weeks of pain and sometimes headache making her highly irritable at times.

Mum had several operations but without success. The latest operation was when I was in my pre teens and I overheard my family discussing that the doctor had removed most of the cysts but one the most critical one was resting on the facial nerve and if they would remove it, facial paralysis would result. Mum decided not to risk it. She cared a lot about maintaining her beauty.

So year after year, she would suffer much inconveniences and after I became a believer, I would prayed much for her healing. Eventually, the eruptions became less frequent. Then came the cancer news. Before that she was in the pink of health.

There was this brief episode of a auntie that came to do facials for her at our place. All I know was she sells RVB products and mum would buy to support her friend who was starting out in the beauty business, it was her best friend at that time though I cannot remember her name. One day she asked mum for a loan $5000 which was a huge sum in those recessionary years in the 80s to help her business. Mum gave and my dad was not happy about it since at that time my grandpa was in and out of the hospital for eventually diabetic amputation of a leg.

Shortly after borrowing money from my mum, this "friend" did not return to provide the facial services. In fact all calls went unanswered and eventually mum told me that this cheat had moved as her flat was sold to someone else. Mum was devastated not at the loss of money but the betrayal of trust. Evidently this RVB sales person had planned ahead and conned her of her housewife savings meant for emergencies. She vehemently forbade me to lend money to any friend in the future. I was to exercise much caution when choosing friends and trusting them. She was very sore about it for a few weeks.

Personally, I hope this person will be "punished" for cheating my mum. Whoever she is, if she is still alive, I pray that one day restituition be done in memory for my mum. Donate that $5000 plus almost 20years of interest to those suffering in Sichuan Earthquake or Myanmar Cyclone and make right this wrong.