Memory

The other night as I was sitting in my condo flooor (not much furniture yet...) An image, a memory popped into my mind...

It was a few weeks after mum bought that home in the Netherlands, it was 1998. September, or October it must have been, the season for terrible storms and rainfall. It rained for days, and someone , probably my brother discovered that the ceiling of the small bedroom was damp in one corner of the room. And that damp soon became a leak.

Mum's , I could see, became distraught. Brother and I rushed out into the rain to inspect the source of the leak... We secured a piece of plastic to divert the flow of the rainwater so it wouldn't go into the walls. That temporarily eased the dampness and flooding.

That night, I saw mum kneeling on the floor of that bedroom, praying to the gods for the problem to go away... Praying perhaps that it is not such a big problem. The next day or so it stopped raining.

That image of mum kneeling on the floor praying will stick with. It brings a tear to my eye to see that before me now... Mum on the floor. I stood quielty behind her and felt so touched. Did I also kneel and pray behind her? I forget. But that moment showed a mother's love, and that deep deep care and worry she felt having bought a place for my brother and I to live in and becoming so distraught knowing that the house leaks...

The leakage was fixed a few months later, at great cost. We had to ask dad to transfer a lot of money for that repair. Between that first leak and the roof being repaired, there were many nights I am sure mum could not sleep easy. Even the ceiling of my bedroom began to become damp and leak. I would at times use a basket to collect the water. My bed and duvet would become damp and have white flakes of paint on them. Mum left to go back to Taiwan shortly after that. That was the start of me living alonex the start of our separation.

I miss mum... I miss dad...

I have a condo now. My first home.
And now I wish my parents could be there to share my joy, to share my memories like these, to share my pride, to share my pain.