Family; Chinese New Year Day 1

Family is a 3 syllable word, I don't often utter.  As a child, my family, fell apart.

We moved into Popo's house at the end of 1980.  I spent the next 8 years, waiting very impatiently to grow up, and to get out.

In the summer of 1989, I peered from my window seat, down at the Pacific Ocean, the mountains grandly defining California, and felt a immense sense of comfort.  I thought, finally, finally- Home.

My father was so horrified when I made the decision to marry my blind date and relocate back to Singapore, he actually called me in NYC to chastise me.  I held the phone away from my face.  I thought- You don't know, what it is like, to be ravished.

Today we visited him.  His was the 3rd house before lunch.  I allocated 30  minutes.  My brother has two young children.  We offer each other, back up.

Popo is almost 100.  Her memory is at times fragile.  But today, she displayed her grit and cheekiness.  A cousin that lives far away calls, long distance.  Popo pretended she did not know her.  She kept repeating in an old woman's voice- Who are you, who are you, even as she looked at me with a gleeful, girlish, wink.

Malay is the dialect we speak at Popo's.  Makan sini, nanti, adar- Eat here, wait, there is.

At my husband's, they laugh in Hokkien.

I laugh along.  I am that hot and that jet lagged.

My husband explains that Ah Kor means Older Aunt in the appropriate respectful tone.  We sit at Ah Kor's  table, eat kueh lapis, listen to her play the piano.  I love Ah kor's house; a sensitive expression of tropical living.  Her eldest son tells me, Ah Kor's truest love is music.  My Fil, her younger brother adds, but Mama insisted that we all do medicine.

Family is a 3 syllable word, I don't often utter.  As a child, my family fell apart.

Oh but Chinese New Year at Popo's house!  The hong baos, the food, and the annual new clothes!

Time passed. We grew up.  Popo has great grandchildren and has outlived even a son.

Chans, Yeohs, Chews, Kohs, a Wong, another Wong.  Strangers linked by the precarious ties of marriage, by the firmer ties of blood.

And at the heart of it all, Popo, radiant- still here, still here.  

She's Still Here.