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My dear friend,
I’d like to share with you my bits for today. It’s just a small part of my life; nevertheless it’s an important one. I’ve seen myself transformed from a small kid to a young girl, an emotionally immature girl who blamed the world for everything wrong that went in her life to one who is appreciative, loving and forgiving. Looking back, I feel that I’ve threaded a long path, each step making up me and myself today; each day leaving a deep memory to recall. Though I don’t write to you everyday, I write in my mind, and I’ve written pages and pages of diaries that are well stored in my subconscious mind.
I’m at the midst of my busiest days, having to accomplish so much in so little time. But instead of rushing to get everything out of the pipeline, I relaxingly arrange my timetable and try to manage my time. What a different attitude it is from what I usually did if I had more things to do than my time allowed. Well, if I’m not too tired, at most I just don’t sleep tonight. That’s what I tell myself.
In the midst of that all, I received my father’s sms, asking me if I was still awake. For a while, I vacillated whether to reply or not. I knew that if I replied, my pa would know that I was still awake and will thus call me. I don’t know how long we’ll talk, but it will definitely take some of my precious time away. If I don’t reply, he wouldn’t know that I was not yet asleep, but he wouldn’t call me. Despite that, I pressed the replied button. Anyway I haven’t been talking to my family members for some time, so this is a good time to catch up with them.
My conjecture was correct. Soon afterwards, he called me. I happily picked up the phone and talked to my family members – my dad, brother and sister. My mom has already slept. While talking to them, I could feel that my heart was warmed with love for them. Though I didn’t say “I love all of you”, I feel it so deeply. And the way we talked to each other was so sweet. We asked each other how we were doing and told each other how we’ve been. Though I haven’t seen them for more than one month now, since I came back to Singapore, somehow I can just tell them how I’m doing and had so much to talk about. If it’s not because I’m reminded that the international phone bill is extremely prohibitive, I wouldn’t have hanged up the phone.
It’s interesting how my attitude has changed throughout these years, especially towards my pa. Two years ago, I picked up his call with a heavy heart. I didn’t really like talking to him. I used to nurse a prejudice against him. That was when I still thought that human beings were static, and that they were born that way. I used to think that if a person was corrupt, he would be forever corrupt, and that his corruptness is solely due to his own impurity of the heart. I thought that every action that one does is independent of other people and is the responsibility of his alone.
Last year, when attending a religious talk, I came to understand that human beings are inter-related. We can’t be ourselves without factoring in the environment in which we grow up and the people around whom our lives revolve. By the same token, my pa is the person he is because of so many determining factors. It may be that he wasn’t so expressive in his feelings because he wasn’t brought up that way. It may be that throughout his lives, he’s encountered incidents that stole trust on others away. And he is constantly influenced by his surroundings, just like he constantly influences me and the way I see the world. That understanding softens my heart, and from that day onwards, I embarked on a journey of self-healing and self-transformation. I started to see that we are at all independent. Whatever actions that we do, whatever behavior that we exhibit, whatever attitude that we have, is learnt one way or the other from our surroundings. I started to see the way to return to my pa.
Throughout these years, I’ve also learnt to love more, to be more honest with myself and with others. Somehow, perhaps unconsciously, I’ve accepted my pa. When I went back home this holiday, I didn’t feel the uneasiness that I felt when I met my father.
And today, I realized that my love has grown even further. I picked up my pa’s call with happiness and eagerness, as if it were my boyfriend who’s called me. I talked on the phone happily, enjoying the flowing of the love from my heart. For the first time since I came to Singapore, I miss home. When talking to them, I can imagine the warm aroma of home – of pa, ma, my brothers and sister. Now I can say without doubt that I love them all.
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