A Simple Gesture of Love

Exhausted, I slumped onto the sofa next to my mom and started whining about my first day at work. For a previous professional bummer, getting accustomed to waking up before 7am was tough.

"So what work are you doing," my mom asked in Mandarin.

I was stumped.

You see, my mom, having gone through a Chinese education, speaks only Mandarin, Hokkien and broken English. While I speak English, broken Mandarin and a sometimes unintelligible mix of Teochew and Hokkien that betrays my Chinese identity crisis.

Product of a fine education system, you say.

Struggling to translate concepts into Chinese was like using primary colours to describe an impressionist painting. In the end, I gave up, grimaced and grinned.

My mom is a simple, unpretentious woman. Her modest pleasures in life include Teochew porridge (known to be plain and bland), coffee that is preferably less sweet, barely ripened fruits and rice dumplings.

Every night without fail, she falls asleep on the sofa while watching her favourite Taiwanese drama series.

Last night, just before she sleepily shuffled to bed, she turned to me to nag.

"Remember to bring an umbrella tomorrow, the forecast said it might rain." She paused. "Preferably get those that are very light."

"Orh."

Determined to catch up on world news through the papers, I nodded patronizingly till I heard her bedroom door shut.

When I got up this morning, I peered out the window.

Clear skies with scattered clouds. Looks like another hot and humid day in Singapore. Mommy wasted her naggy breath on me again.

But her nag nagged me through the morning.

I tried to remember the last time she nagged at me to bring a brolly. I think it was when I was still an innocent, sweaty little boy, running off in navy blue shorts to take the MRT train to school on my own.

An epiphany draped itself over my shoulders like a thick fur coat.

Here stood her eldest son, looking incredibly smart in shirt and pants - never mind that the shirt he bought is half a size too big and only emphasizes his lack of stature.

Her pride and joy stepping out into the big unknown - never mind that she doesn't understand the work he's doing.

Naturally, as the concerned mother who just heard the weather forecast, you tell him to bring a brolly or else he's gonna get caught in the rain.

So how does it feels to be loved?

Words can hardly describe this remembrance of the greatest love on earth, one that is always there, one that is so easy to take for granted.

As I shared this little ingot of joy with a good friend earlier today, I thought to myself, too much psycho-analysis? Perhaps.

But a simple (and sleepy) gesture of love it definitely was.