Friday, February 11, 2005

my mother's voice

i heard my mother's voice today, for the first time in many years.

it was the voice that spoke to the baby i once was. the voice which must have been, one time or another, shaken with sadness or dampened by tears. she had a rough time as a woman who found herself rudely thrown into motherhood after 7 barren years, and yet she sang to me gentle songs of love. she touched me with her warm hands, and whispered words only a baby can understand with her sweet voice.

it was the voice that rang out clear in the house as she busied herself with housework. she crooned melodies that are so familiar to me. the treacle-thick tunes of teresa teng, the jolly numbers by sam hui...my mother had her own repertoire that she ran through each day. the sound of her voice was comforting to me as a child. it reminded me that i had the most beautiful woman in the world as my mother, and she sang the most beautiful songs in the world. she would burst into song at every opportunity possible, at every unlikely moment. there would always be a tune from the distant land of her youth that she wanted to share with me, and i waited for those tunes to emerge from her, like little bubbles bursting at the surface of a turquoise pond.

it was the voice i heard less and less through my teenage years. she never stopped singing the songs i loved so much, but in my self-preoccupation i unwittingly blocked her out of my life. i ignored her voice and chose to listen to my own, immature thoughts. i immersed myself with...myself.

in those selfish years, my mother grew tired. age was catching up with her, and she was beginning to feel the burden of having to raise a teenager as she passed the half-century mark. she had to deal with the pain of living in a body that could not catch up with her soul. my mother is a free-spirited woman who once found herself imprisoned by her selflessness. now that she can finally let go, having successfully raised one of her children to adulthood and ensuring the other has a safe future, she is betrayed by the vessel that encloses her very self.

and so her voice hid, as if my mother hoped that the energy and life her voice had would nourish her broken body if it were kept inside, safe from the cruel world.

but i heard my mother's voice today. in a sudden bout of happiness in the presence of her siblings, my mother picked up the microphone during a karaoke session. for years she would firmly refuse if anyone so much as suggested she display her golden voice, and yet today she readily grabbed the opportunity to remind us all what a treasure she had inside.

as she began to sing, i felt like a little child again. i was awed by how smooth her voice is, as smooth as molten silver and as sweet as it sounds in my memories. she sang one of the songs of my childhood, one about asking for a kiss, and her voice danced and skipped in a manner it hadn't been for a long time. she looked genuinely happy at that moment, and i felt genuinely happy for her.

i heard her voice today in a way i haven't heard in what seems to be forever. yet there was a tinge of sadness within the bright joy of the melody. that sadness embodied those years my mother kept her voice under lock and key, and the realisation that perhaps there won't be many more chances for her to release it anymore.

it isn't something i wish i thought about, but it is something both of us will deal with in our own different ways. still, i hope i hear my mother's voice again. i hope i never stop hearing it.

lishun at 11:37 AM

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