Mothers And Daughters

Unwavering Commitment And Undying Love

I loved to dote on Mom. I enjoyed pampering her with gifts and lunch treats as often as I could.  In the words of my Dad, handwritten in a handmade birthday card for Mom a couple of years ago, she had taken care of him with "unwavering commitment and undying love".  Indeed, she had taken care of the entire family with unwavering commitment and undying love. So, I would never hesitate to take the day off from work to spend the day with her, call her in between my meetings at work just to ask her about her day, and surprise her with gifts from time to time. What I could do for her was nothing. The amount of sacrifices made would not even come close to those that she had made for the family. This woman's "unwavering commitment and undying love" was not reserved only for Dad, my brother and I. She rendered it generously to the rest of her family, particularly Grandma.  That is why, as  I grew up and became successful, I had always put Mom above everyone and everything else.  All I wanted was to be able to take care of her and make her happy.  I wanted to wipe off every wrinkle from her face, the tell-tale signs of the struggles she had suffered during her younger days.  

These are just some of the stories of her past that I had picked up recently.  I did not want to make the mistake I did in the past when I finally shared stories about Dad when it was way too late.   I am sharing these stories today as my belated Mothers' Day tribute to the strongest and bravest women in my life, my Mother and my Grandma. 

The Engagement Ring

On 11 August 1968, Dad and Mom got engaged to be married.  I flipped through the dusty family albums to get an insight into that occasion.  It was a day filled with so much happiness as they exchanged engagement rings and  promised each other a future of marital bliss and eternal love.   A few days ago, I spotted Mom wearing the engagement ring and proceeded to remove it from her finger to play with it.  The underside of the white gold band was inscribed "E. Nah - 11 August 1968". I thought that was rather odd.  That had to be Dad's engagement ring, wasn't it?   When one exchanges a wedding or engagement ring, wouldn't the inscription within the underside of that ring be that of your spouse's  name and not your own?  

I then asked Mom,"Where is your engagement ring? Isn't this Dad's?"  Mom then proceeded to tell me that shortly after her engagement to Dad, she gave the ring to Grandma so that the latter could have it pawned in order to have some money to feed the rest of the kids at home.  Grandma had 6 kids including Mom. It was a difficult life having to raise 6 kids post war, on my Grandpa's meagre earnings as a clerk at the university.  Mom said it was a matter of survival for the family. She felt that as the oldest sibling about to be married, while she was one less burden on my Grandma and Grandpa, Mom felt that it was her duty to help the family out when they were in need.  Dad knew nothing about the pawned engagement ring and neither did anyone else within the family.  It was a secret shared between mother and daughter.   I felt compelled as the daughter and granddaughter to finally let the cat out of the bag within this blog post because it was to me, a symbol of my mother's "unwavering commitment and undying love" shown towards her family.  If I were put in the same position, pressured by those circumstances, I would have done the same. It is this special unspoken mother-daughter connection underlying our relationship and her own relationship with her mother, that no one else on earth could ever understand.

The Hairdresser Duo

Today, during lunch with Grandma, I spoke to her about the engagement ring. She  shared even more stories from the past that underscored this special mother-daughter bond.  Grandma was a trained hairdresser.  At the family's home in Serangoon Gardens then, she had put up a sign that said "Hairdresser" at the front of the house.  Many women living in that area would visit the home to have their hair washed, styled and permed.  Grandma and Mom who had helped her then, would sometimes suffer from skin irritations on their fingers because of the hair treatment lotions they had to use in the course of their work.  When times were really tough and money was tight, Mom would help Grandma to pack the curlers, combs, pegs, pins, hairnets, lotions and hairdryer into a little old schoolbag and travel across the village neighborhood to sell their hairdressing services. They were "hairdressers making house calls".  Serangoon Gardens then was a village where many British military personnel and their families had lived.  So many of these women who had their hair treated by Grandma were wives of British soldiers.   My Grandma and Mom were such an enterprising duo.  They even took IOUs on payment for the hair treatment sessions because some of these women could only pay them on Thursdays when their husbands who had worked in the British army, got their weekly salary.  I was completely amazed at the thought of this dynamic mother-daughter team gallivanting across the village neighborhood with their little schoolbag, driven by circumstance to become entrepreneurs.   Again, it is this unspoken mother-daughter bond that inspired so much strength and courage to keep the family going, sheltered, fed and schooled.

Never Go Hungry

Grandma also spoke about how she would never allow the family to go hungry. Even with little or no money, she would open a pack of vermicelli that cost 40 cents then, and fried it with a couple of eggs and soy sauce.  That would feed the family of 6 kids and 2 adults very well. If there were no vermicelli or noodles to be found in the cupboard, she would fry a little pork lard in some oil, mixed that with rice and soy sauce and whipped up a delicious rice dish for the family dinner.  Grandma was so resourceful. She had no choice then when poverty struck, but she assured me that the family was a very happy one.  I know, because Mom, no matter what, had always embraced life with positivity. If Mom was a chip of her block, I was truly grateful that Grandma had been critical in inspiring that positivity and courage in my mother.

Today, Grandma and Mom are closer than ever. Everywhere they went and everything they did together, be it playing up a storm at their weekly mahjong games with friends or enjoying a buffet lunch uptown, I would see the same two women walking across the village neighbourhood with their little schoolbag filled with hairdressing tools. 

I love my Mom and Grandma. I wished I was as strong and brave as they were.  I am just a wee shadow of their giant selves, because what they had brought to the table were their unwavering commitment and their undying love for the family.

Respect.

About The Writer

The writer of this blog post is a Marketing and PR professional for over 20 years.  Due to her love for Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), she is also a freelance sports writer on the side, contributing MMA-related articles to several sports media.  She works in partnership with her husband, David Ash, who is an avid sports photographer from www.singaporemaven.com.  She is passionate about Boxing and nurtures a dream to fight competitively one day when her coach stops making fun of her.  She is also a psychic intuitive by birth and runs a consultancy that does tarot and numerology readings under her brand, Sun Goddess Tarot.  This blog is affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" as she is married to one, although she has not yet explained to THE Ang Mo that when translated, he has been labeled  “the bloke with ginger hair”.  

My Beautiful Grandmother And Mother - Sometimes Looney But Mostly Sweet

Dad's Engagement Ring - He Didn't Know Mom's Been Pawned.  I Hope He Understood Why.

The little schoolbag full of hairdressing tools looked something like this.

Reliving Youth At Happy Daze

Reliving Youth

One evening, while chatting over dinner and drinks at a pub owned by my friend, she spoke to us about some of her challenges faced running the pub.  The lack of trained and experienced staff was always an issue.  In the F&B industry good service staff is difficult to find and even harder to hold on to.  She was also in the throes of a major renovation then which left her with little time managing the constant stream of customers coming in. 

The pub’s crowded every evening, and the crowd was a good mix of regular customers who lived in the area as well as customers who came straight from work as their offices were located nearby.  I liked the fact that the pub was a cosy hangout, and I could walk in without make-up, dressed in a t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops, propped myself at the bar and used it as my cosy “office space” to complete my Tarot readings via email, while I enjoyed a glass of red wine.

My friend asked if Joel could help out at the pub in the evenings after school.  I wasn’t too keen on that idea particularly when a) Joel needed to put his head down to get through this course and graduate without any drama and b) I didn’t want him to work for free by spending his hard-earned money at the pub on glass and tableware that I foresee he would be breaking throughout his stint serving at the pub,.

So Joel didn’t get past his interview with me for the job as head bartender.  However, out of concern for my dear friend who had grown up with me since school days, and partly because I thought it was a good idea to temporarily get the hubby out of my hair in the evenings so that I could take on more Tarot reading appointments, I decided to “pimp” David out to my friend to take on the role proudly as the new head bartender.

Now, David has a full time job.  He runs a business which sees him meeting clients, managing interviews and working on new business pitches and client presentations on a daily basis. So time is a scarcity for him apart from week nights.  When I was persuading him to help my friend out, I was half expecting him to dismiss the idea as one of my looney attempts to get him out of my hair.  It was not very far from the truth.

In actual fact, David had no say in the idea apart from a slight grunt. When he was studying at Napier University, he used to spend his evenings after lectures working at his local.  I convinced him that this was no different. The pub was down the road from our home, I was there often to do my Tarot readings anyway, I even used the pub as my base to do creative agency briefings and I am there for dinner at least once a week.  So I persuaded David to do my friend a favor and work the “Gordon Ramsay” magic on the operational issues at her pub.  After all, it was just for a bit of fun in the evenings from Monday to Friday.  He was making best use of his time helping someone, while getting a bit of fitness in his life too as he walks to the pub from home and back. 

Thankfully, David agreed to it because like his time spent on being the lead guitarist at his band, or his time spent doing photography work at rugby and soccer games, he felt this stint at the pub was Reliving His Youth.


Happy Days At Happy Daze

My friend’s pub is called Happy Daze. This was quite aptly named because she always looked like she was in a daze.  In fact, most of us looked like we were always in a daze then, stumbling through school quite haphazardly.  However the best decision she had ever made, was to turn this little corner of our neighborhood which was previously a second-hand book store called NIB, into a lucrative pub. 

We had so many wonderful memories of NIB.  I used to rent books from there with stories about the Famous Five, Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys.  When I was slightly older and fancied a handsome prince coming to sweep me off my feet and into the sunset, I rented stacks of Barbara Cartland books.  Then, Barbara Cartland was porn to me.  I felt that I had grown up whenever I read about how the main character in the book would get her hair caressed and how she would feel her nipples hardened just by a single kiss.  Wow!  That was explosive for an 11 year old.  Sadly, 33 years later, I confronted the reality that there was no such thing as a mind-blowing, nipple-hardening kiss, particularly when Law and Order, CSI Miami and NCIS were on the list of must-watch programs every night.

So that second-hand book store was the hallmark of my Happy Days as a child.  My friend did well to preserve that memory somewhat by opening a pub in its place.  Well, at least she maintained the grumpiness and eccentric character of the second hand bookstore owner.  Every time one complained about being served soggy chips or cold baked beans on toast, she would growl at the person and bark, “It’s edible in’it?”  It was comforting to know that nothing has changed too much.

The New Angmo Bar Supervisor

I am glad to report that David’s stint at Happy Daze for the past few weeks had been filled with plenty of laughter. His presence at the pub drew a lot of buzz.  One customer asked “Who’s that new Angmo (a commonly used slang for a Caucasian in Singapore) bartender?. Another customer quipped,” I did not realize Happy Daze had a new boss.”  Yet another said, “Perhaps he was  hired to cater  to the  growing population of fellow Angmos living in the area.”    So he was met with these reactions from customers which really made him laugh.  He recounted how he had helped retrain the bar staff, taught them how to make proper mojito fresh from scratch and not use the pre-mixed mojito. He taught them how to do a proper Tequila Sunrise. He also taught them how to make basic Irish coffee.  The staff there were amazed by his skills behind the bar.  Like I mentioned before, he was reliving his youth.   He also reorganized the layout of the bar such that the bar staff had better access to the variety of drinks and even did a review of the kitchen. 

He became fast friends with a bar staff who was a Chinese national.  It was quite fun to watch them attempt to converse meaningfully because one spoke little English and the other had a broad Scottish accent. He became fast friends with some of the customers who lived around the neighborhood and was sorely missed when he couldn’t help out at the pub on weekends.

Happy Dave

David  is still having fun nightly at the pub.  I am there about twice a week to do my Tarot readings there. Often our friends come around to meet us there for drinks too.  My friend had such a weird sense of humour too and decided to hang a parrot mobile up at the bar counter to signify that Sun Goddess Tarot was in the house, every time I showed up.  Moreover, the bar and service staff were often thrilled every time I shuffled my Tarot cards or did a numerological assessment for them.

I am conscious though that David maintains his focus on his day job as a headhunter.  Reliving his youth as a photographer, guitarist and head bartender is okay if it helped him take away the stress of his day job and added a bit of excitement in his life.  We often joked that Happy Daze should rebrand itself into Happy Dave because that is that little bit of light he had brought to the place.

My friend should feel blessed. Do visit this quaint little pub, Happy Daze, if you want to try one of David's to-die-for Oreo milkshakes. It is located in Singapore at a small residential area called Serangoon Gardens.

About the writer:

The writer of this blog post is a 43 year old mother of one, who spreads her time between her day job as a marketeer at a financial institution, her hobby as a certified professional tarot reader and numerologist, and her family which includes a 19 year old son.  She's married to a Scot who has been affectionately called "The Crazy AngMo" and prays that he does not find out that the term when translated, has labeled him as a "Ginger Head".