Yesterday was Amah's birthday. Her 83rd, so she says. We really have to check her IC. Why? Because when mum told her we were having dinner to celebrate, she insisted it was MY birthday :))
So we ate at a nice little seafood place down at Bukit Timah. You know, the usual, crabs, prawns, fish, mussles, blah blah blah..And as I sat there and watched poor ole' granny take a nibble of her steamed grouper and gingerly pull a fishbone out from between her dentures, I was suddenly reminded of the fiery old matriach she once was.
Not any more.
I was brought up by Amah and can attest to her calcium-hardened knuckle bones which used to come crashing down on my head if I mis-behaved. She would also pick me up by the scruff of the neck and toss me. Strong woman she was. But this was the same woman who would shield me from the wrath of my father and put ointment on the cane marks across my thighs so that my classmates didn't get to see them in school.
Entwined with the memories of pain, are recollections of the straits-chinese gastrononomical delights that formed an indelible part of my childhood. Amah, you see, was a fabulous nonya cook. And had I not been busy catching spiders and doing all those naughty-schoolboy things and spent more time in the kitchen helping her at the mortar and pestle with the belachan, I could have been the next Shermay Lee with my own celebrity cooking school at HollandV and Peranakan Cookbook.
Amah's all bent and frail now. And we have to shout to communicate with her because she refuses to wear a hearing aid. I suspect she's lost her sense of taste as well. Although amazingly, she still cooks on special occasions and the food tastes just as good as it used to be. We think its because she knows the recipes by heart and instinctively, how much of this and that to put into the wok.
Her hubby died when my father was 10. My own father has since gone to heaven. I wonder how hard it was for Amah to raise 3 kids on her own and then have to contend with out-living her own son.
As I pushed the red packet into her hands after dinner, she smiled at me. Something I have not seen in 20 years. Behind that facade of deafness, senility and sensory-tongue deficiency, I think I will always be her Ah Boy.
Happy Birthday Amah.