As 2009 arrives, I’ve been thinking about how I have changed over the years and about how our environment including the people we meet and know shapes us into what we are… for better or for worse. Despite how much we may insist that we are slaves to no one or we were not influenced by anybody. We all have our heroes… we have all changed certain aspects of our selves due to our experiences, what we see, what we have learned and so on.
Back in my younger days until college, I used to have trouble fitting in. I was neither the jock in school nor was I the Einstein in class. But fortunately, I have made some good friends who helped steer me through the rough seas.
As we head towards the new year I will take some time to acknowledge the people who have made a difference in my life starting with Mom & Dad...
My Mom & Dad… Where would I be without them right? My dad wasn’t one of the most hands-on parent but as my mom explained, he was brought up in a very different and strict family so that has inadvertently shaped him into a very strict, by the book person. He was also very involved in the scouting movement so that pretty much contributed to his discipline. As a boy I was also a very naughty and had a bad temper… I used to explain it as I was just trying to be helpful and people just didn’t appreciate me… Let me give you some good examples…There was this once when I really wanted to help burn the rubbish as I’ve seen my dad doing that… I mean… nobody told me I wasn’t supposed to do it while the rubbish was in the paper basket which happened to be under the curtain.
Then there was this one time when my grandmother was washing the clothes outside the house. There was this tap and my grandma was there slaving away and I happened to see her from about 10 feet above… It was a 1.5 storey house so I was at the garden above and I missed her so much that I couldn’t wait to run down the stairs… “Por Por… here I come” and whoosh… I jumped… I ended up almost splitting my head in two with 12 stitches as a souvenir. Fortunately my grandma didn’t have a weak heart or she might have had a heart attack right there and then seeing me appear out of thin air screaming to high heaven. Hmmm… maybe that’s why she rarely visited us in Port Dickson after that… She had enough of flying grandsons…
There was also the time my parents & relatives had introduced me to stamp collecting. This was long time ago when the Internet was only used by the military and there was no such thing as e-mail. Now ah? I don’t know if kids still know what a stamp is. Anyway, I had this knack of going through places I wasn’t supposed to and lo behold… I found this treasure chest of small little bits of thick colourful paper with nice stamps that I didn’t have. So… *tear* *tear* & *tear*… All my dad’s receipts were reduced to erm… there’s no way to describe the expression on his face when he found out and that lovely voice in the air calling out to me “AAAAUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN…….”.
With the above examples, I guess I should be fortunate that my parents didn’t disown me when they could have.
Well… my mom did take this opportunity to temporarily disown me whenever my report card didn’t have the right colour… Meaning the grades was in red la… I didn’t really think it was funny at the time but now that I think back, it was funny how my mom asked me to get my dad to sign the report card whenever I did badly but when I got okay to good grades then she took the credit. Talking about grades, one memorable moment was after the SPM results were released. While everyone was so sad and depressed about how they missed out on 6As, 7As or whatever I was hopping around in ecstasy… “I PASSED!! I PASSED!! I GOT GRADE 1!!! I PASSED!! I CAN GO FORM 6!!” Who cares if my aggregate was just one point away from Grade 2. Keh! Keh! Keh!
Anyway, there were some defining moments with my mom & dad as well. As mentioned, my dad wasn't one of those lovey-dovey parent and most of his letters to me were on office memo papers with his name printed and he always penned off "Yours Sincerely, Lim Chin Seng"... Grrr... There was this one time when I don't know what got over me and I wrote back about how I felt and you can imagine my surprise when the next letter came... It was signed "Love, Dad"... I think this was the single most memorable moment of my relationship with my Dad.
My relationship with my mom was relatively closer and she was as patient as she could with me and growing up the way I did, it's amazing how she managed to stay so patient with me. I used to be a very bad tempered and angry kid rebelling against my parents all the time and there was this one time when I had quite a big argument and after that refused to talk to my dad... Well.. I was quite insistent I was right which my mom agreed but she also told me that my dad grew up in a different time and he is the way that he is because of how he was brought up as well. I can't expect him to apologize to me and if I were to go on like that things will never get better. As well, she explained how I had to keep my temper in check as I would have problems socializing with others if I were to always show my temper. I guess just showing temper is an understatement as I had on occasion lost control of myself as well... Think Wolverine in his berzerker rage... minus the adamantium claws and healing factor... :-)
Oh well… more 'role models' in the next post…
