Forthnights

Our little secret

"Take this, don't tell anyone."

She quietly held my hand and slipped it to me. I didn't have to look to know what it was. Though I never expected this to happen, the moment she sat close beside me, I knew.

"I can't take this Auntie, I have done nothing to deserve it.", I said.

"I know how it feels like to go to a foreign land. You will need it."

There was nothing much i could do beyond saying Thank you. I wanted to hug this 3rd aunt of mine, but such a sudden show of emotion would have been out of place. After all, all my relatives, along with my brother were around the living room, stomachs filled to the brim after the reunion dinner. All these years, i have not thought much of my relatives. I dont really like them, with perhaps a few exceptions, and this was one of them. My third Aunt and her husband have been living in America for as long as I have been born.

She used to live somewhere near Niagra Falls I think (from the pictures) , but they moved to California once, and now lived in Florida. I never got to see much of her, but i knew that my father was closest to this sister, among all his siblings. For some reason, among all of them, I still regarded her and her husband highly. She was a nurse, and he was a Pastor in a hospital Chapel.

I slipped the US$100 bill into my pocket. It was meant to save me from a tight spot when I am in the UK. There was a lot racing through my mind. I was thinking about how how things were going to turn out in a years time. Will I be happy working in my new place? Should I consider getting a car? Can I even afford it? Will i ever get anywhere? Then, there was the immediate concerns. What happened with my mother? Why did she change her mind all of a sudden? What time should we leave the house to go pick her up later? For reasons only known to her, she made a last minute decision to come down to Kl again to stay with us, hopefully this time for good. She said she could no longer get along with the people there. My brother and i just sigh in surrender. We were tired; I was tired of dealing with all of this.

As we sat in the car, on the way to the bus stop, I contemplated telling my brother about the hundred dollar bill. After all, it was only the right thing to do. Though she did say "dont tell anyone", I knew that it didnt really apply to my own brother. But for some reason, I was reluctant to share this piece of information, and decided against it. Perhaps I felt that it was my secret to keep. It was only to be used in emergency, and only in emergency would i reveal it. I know its not a very popular decision, but the heck with it.

We waited for a grand total of 2 hours for my mothers bus to arrive. She looked thinner, but without that worn look on her face. I knew she was being well taken care of over there. As we returned home, she revealed her tale, telling us about her stay in the local Gospel Hall, about her attempt at finding odd jobs and such. Nothing out of the unusual, everything you would expect my mother to do; things normal people wouldnt do, but my mother was no normal person. In a way of her own, my mother never bothered to conform to social norms. It is something I dread and respect at the same time. Despite the odds, she has managed to save almost a thousand ringgit to her name, without spending much. Its impressive to say the least, considering she has no proper job. But dig deeper, and you know just how hard she works for it. She washed dishes, she stayed in shelter homes, she asked for food from strangers, she lines up for social welfare money.

In any case, I am glad that she is home again, at her own doing. I told my brother I would not mention the issue of medication for this festive holidays, but once the Lunar new year was over, we would have to sit down and talk about it. My stand has not changed, and she knows it.

In the mean time, I am moving again. Already, I have packed much of my things, ready to be transported to my brothers home. My girlfriend has chartered a lorry to move all her things to her new place with her younger brother. I have been busy packing and hunting for boxed these few days. The 2 things that perhaps bother me the most are this:

The lack of privacy. Since I'll be moving into my brothers place, i guess i wont get much privacy as before, specifically on the computer. since it is going to be put outside. That means I cant blog freely! There are no nearby internet centers, which means I cant do my surfing that often anymore.

Far away from my girlfriend! Well, its more of personal thing. In so many ways, i think she living with her brother without me is a really good thing. She will become more independent; not so dependent on me. I have notice that the more independent she is, she more our own relationship flourishes. She is one half the pillar on which I plan to build my family. The stronger the both of us are individually, the better our family will be.

As we arrived back home, we unloaded my mothers things and crashed straight into bed. I changed my clothes, and emptied my pockets. I had never seen a hundred dollar bill before. The smell was different, the texture was different, the size was different. I am so accustomed to our local currency, that this US dollar seemed almost like monopoly money. But I could not doubt just how much value this note carried, both in cash, and in deed.

Where are you my friend? Its been a long time.

posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 1:21 pm Comments: 0