coins...

I've been having a recurrent dream for the past few weeks. Not on a daily basis, but it'll skip a few days and come back again.

It makes me want to cry, sometimes even laugh or smile at the little things that used to be be part of what made me the person i am today..

My dream start like this. I am a little girl, wearing my favorite cotton dress with small yellow printed flowers and a ribbon to tie behind my back. I'm walking along Jalan Sungai Seget, in the middle of Jb town. Where the bus station used to be. It was a dirty place, with plenty of colonial shophouses selling everything from books, food, toys, school uniforms to coffins. I remember clearly there was an Atm at the corner.

As my mother and me alight the bus, we walk towards the atm. My mother slots in her card into the machine, with a frown on her face. I remember my mother's face. She was thinner, younger, less pigmented and her light brown eyes always shone. Then i see a pink hue in my mother's eyes amidst her light brown retina. She looked as if she was going to cry. I looked up at the screen which is too tall for my little body, and i see RM25.80. I wonder, thats not too bad...I get 50 cents to school everyday. Thats alot of money!

My mother withdraws 10ringgit, smiles at me and asks me what i'd like to eat. I choose the wantan mee which i absolutely loved at a run down coffee shop at the end of the row of shophouses. After eating in silence, we wait and take a bus home which is a 45minutes hour ride. Then we trek up the hill to get to our house. When we get into the house, i plonk on the bed, satisfied of my awesome meal which has now made me as sleepy as a well-fed python...

Except, that this isn't really a dream. It was real. This was a flash-back scene from 20years ago.I remember clearly always having money problems as a child. I envied other kids at school who had their parents pick them up from school in multicolored cars. I wished we had a datsun which my bed friend's dad had. I hated having to share the bike with both my parents, being squashed in between. I hated having to stop and put on ugly blue raincoats when rain suddenly washed down on us while other cars zoomed past and splashed muddy water on us.

I wonder how my mother ever lived the life she had. How she survived and made me smile with a mere plate of wan tan mee. Surely we weren't starving in between meals, but we were very poor.

We had our first car when i was 13 years old. My cousin sold us her second hand kancil. It was wonderful, to have a car. I used to walk home from school which was 2km away sometimes in the blistering heat, because i didn't have money to pay for the school bus that month. I remember, it was only 14ringgit per month. But it was alot. Up till when i was in secondary school, i brought RM1 to school. And it was more than enough for me. How expensive food is these days.

Now, our lives are better, we're far from being part of middle classed families, but it's better. At least, we can buy whatever neccesities we need. I earn a decent amount every month doing a job i love. I couldn't ask for more. While my dad is still working, i'm happy to be able to contribute to their lives the way they have contributed and dedicated theirs to mine.

My mother suffers from diabetes and hypertension. And recently, she has Alzheimer's symptoms. And it pains me that i cannot be patient with her sometimes when she forgets stuff. Not because of the inconvenience it causes me, but it pains me to see her this way before i can truly provide them a comfortable life.

They say your childhood shapes the way you are for the rest of your life. Am i glad i had a hard time growing up? Yes, because amidst that, there was still happiness that i exeperienced in the simplicities i had growing up.

Why have i been having this dream? Beats me... But it sure as hell makes me blue thinking of the past......

And kathy, moon shines on me..... Gotcha! =)