Whenever I spend time with her
I go home with an emotion-soaked sponge of a heart.
It's not just that she remembers my favourite foods and delights in having me around for dinner.
She tells me that she added prawns into my soup (and not to tell the others) and justifies this with an unabashed favouritism (advantage- E).
Or how she keeps asking me to leave right after dinner, even though she really wants me to stay and watch some tv.
She is every bit an Ow woman. Caustic, resilient, proud, quietly supportive, Cantonese.
Everytime I see her I am reminded of just how unfair life can be. It always makes me cry. Because I become so overwhelmed by the injustice that has marked and marred her life. I feel so helpless, so frustrated that things are the way they are for her. That life has dealt a heart of gold with unrelenting blows of pain. That after all the years she'd spent watching me grow into the 26-year old baby I am now, I can't take away the lonliness, bitterness, alienation, and misfortune that she's constantly had to combat, alone. And I am ashamed that I don't try harder. For all the cotton dresses with big orange buttons, birthday cards (no matter where I am in the world, every year), and letter i's she made me write. Shame on me.
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Heart broke when he came
Not long, he was everything.
Wails inside, resigned.
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