Brayden 7Y4M13D
Bevlynn 3Y1M7D
I was returning from JB. Mom, Max and Gene were arriving to Singapore the same night. They were here to play the Pokemon Go Global Fest.
On Sat and Sun, they were catching the Necrozma - legendary pokemon the whole day. At times, they will end up with rare shining pokemon or one with special background. Brayden was very pro. Actually, it matched his Character Day theme; the one he wore to school that Monday. If he had dressed up today as the pokemon trainer, he would play the role very well. He knew what to do, where to go, how to catch, etc...
Brayden came running to me. "Mommy, I felt something hard when I brushed my teeth, Look it is my tooth". He did not feel any pain, he just brushed hard enough and the tooth feel off. Good boy~
We met RR and JH at Marche. Lina and YT's children were ill so they could not come. It was RR birthday but we could not really celebrate. She just lost a relative in the family. But still it was a good meet-up for the children.
Mom was recalling the spiritual encounter she had more than 10 year ago. It was when we first moved to the rented house in Reservoir Garden.
The house was empty for more than 6 months before we moved in.
She felt the dark presence, knocked on doors, horse-riding sound across the hall. She heard voices calling out Max and her name (with grandma's voice). Those voices were very faint but unearthly. She wanted to look for help from a medium in a temple to remove these hauntings; a friend made a recommendation. However, she had searched for the place for about a month but she could not find it. Eventually, she found the hidden temple. The medium told her the house was indeed haunted and asked her to get a Buddha to be placed at home for daily praying.
Even so, there were many obstacles around getting the right altar and Buddha statue. She felt my Dad was not very happy with the whole process. At times, he'd throw tantrums at her for no reasons. The first altar was delivered but cracked, so she had to wait another month. My Dad was screaming out to the neighbourhood at night from our gate. She saw 4 dark shadows standing outside of our house, she yelled at them to stay away. At one time, we could smell very thick gross dead corpse stench lingering around our home. She was afraid but she kept to herself - showing a brave front.
Actually Dad was going through a tough time during then. We had to sell and let go our home in Bukit Dumbar because Dad was in a tough financial difficulty - Nobody understood and helped him through it all. Now that we are grown and know how tough it is to earn for family, I realised the heavy burden of being responsible as the breadwinner. Traditionally, families like ours do not really share all our troubles because we do not want them to be worried. Somehow without these communication, it hurt the family more than it helped. Back then, I used to think Dad had very bad temper and he'd lashed out on his family. So now looking back, I can understand the emotional roller-coaster faced by my Dad. I can understand but that does not mean it was the best approach, there could have been better days.
My Mom in her ways, felt that she had done much more to bring the family together. She indeed tried her best. At one time, Bro Gene was having depression probably and he'd thought of harming himself. But my Mom tried convincing him to leave this thoughts behind. I would not have been able to be as strong as her. If I was in her shoes, I would probably break down and be lost......
She had gone through a lot in her life; frankly nobody could provide her guidance; not even her Mom (my Grandma - who passed on). So she had to step-up the ways she knows best; although it may not always be right. Her life is no short of stories similar or worse than the dramas.
When we spoke of stories from back in those days, it will still pull some of my Mom's emotional strings and it would be difficult for her to bring it up.
Bro Max asked me to put all those stories into a book-writing. I'll write about it.....
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