Hitherto when I talked about Miss Brown, it was with the perspective of her stroke, and her post-stroke journey. But now it has come to the time where, perhaps, if I were to speak of her full story, then a little more about her ought to be known.
We all have different stories; and some of us have more than others. There're the very emotional ones, there're the standard ones, there're the silver spoon ones, and there're the rags to riches ones. Some stories are extraordinary. Some stories are ordinary.
But whether they be ordinary or not, each one is still a story nonetheless, and each one is unparalleled on its own.
Miss Brown's story is an ordinary one. Nothing very spectacular, yet unique on its own.
She was born upcountry during a time when the entire land was just one country and not split into two. Her parents were non-natives of the country. They'd come down from further north- the motherland. Why they came down, we don't know. Neither does Miss Brown. She just knows that she and her elder brother lived upcountry for a while until her father fell ill and the whole family went back up.
By the time the family came down again, there was one member missing. Her father. He had passed on back in the motherland.
How Miss Brown felt about the passing of her father, we don't know. To her, it is as if he was never there. She was much too young, she claims. What she does recall of the time up north is of the rural farm on the east coast of the Peninsula where they lived. She remembers running around the place, and going with the other children out to the fields to catch frogs.
We don't know how long she stayed in the rural farming community, but we do know that somewhere along the way, when she was old enough to attend school, she was sent down to live with a relative and register for school. We know that the shop house the relative owned was near the school- really, just a few steps away- so we presume that she spent her days between school and home.
How her days were during her stay there, we don't know; how long she stayed there, we don't know too. But we know that after a couple of years her mother came down from upcountry to join her children and they (likely) shifted somewhere else.
Miss Brown changed schools for a bit, here and there going all the way until she completed the Chinese equivalent of the A Levels. She then went on to pick up skills in dressmaking, hairdressing and make-up. Those days probably held the most fond of memories for Miss Brown.
She moved on to have her own hair salon thereafter at a shop house on the east side of the country. It was also around this time, during one of the most conflictual times of the country's development, that she met a former classmate who would later become her husband.
They married in the early sixties.
There is a studio photograph of them in their wedding outfits.
At first they stayed with his parents and family. Getting used to a new household, even with the matriarch in control, was no easy an adjustment. Moreover, her husband's job in the forces often took him away from home, and so Miss Brown found herself as a newly-wed needing to cope alone with a new environment, a new home, a new family, everything. The family ran a laundrette, so in between learning to prepare new dishes in the kitchen, she also helped out there a bit.
It was okay.
Except for one thing.
There was no child.
Being barren in a Chinese household during the late sixties in this culture meant being subjected to a constant barrage of snide remarks from the other ladies in the household. It also meant having to bear the unkind words, sarcasm and condemnation from the elders who deemed barrenness as a sin and utter failure of the woman.
And she had no support from her husband whatsoever.
She had to bear it all alone.
Whether there was any support from his end, or whether he blamed her, we don't know. But things did affect her quite badly, so much so that the married couple moved out from the family home into government-assigned accommodations to stay on their own.
Things were better, but Miss Brown was still lonely.
What happened, how she coped with it and all that, we don't really know- Miss Brown is naturally reticent about it- but in 1967, on the suggestion of her own parent, she adopted a child.
A little girl all of 6 months old.
A little girl whom Miss Brown says, grasped her finger tightly and refused to let go.
A little girl who was given a new name by the members of her adopted family, who grew up fed and clothed by her adopted parents.
A little girl who grew up playing with friends and cousins, who later went to kindergarten and afterwards to primary and secondary school, and as best as Asian families can be, was accepted into the family of her mother's, and that of her father's.
For twelve years, it was just the three of them- Miss Brown, her husband, and her little girl. They were typically happy. Day to day life resumed. The family shifted out from the assigned accommodation to another apartment close by. We don't hear much of the day to day life during those years. But we have pictures, and they show occasional family holidays upcountry, excursions to the parks, and picnics by the beaches.
This was a time of major transition, massive organization, and a tremendous amount of structuring across all sectors. Along with it came medical advancement, and right on with medical advancement came a new hope for barren women.
Miss Brown maintains that for all of nine months, as the family shifted back temporarily to her husband's family home, and through all the appointments at the doctor's, she never tod her daughter about her pregnancy.
And so the little girl, how a child of twelve, found out one day that her position of only child had been usurped by her new baby brother to that of elder sister.
Miss Brown's story- the one that I've been permitted to tell- begins here.
Because as far as health and all goes, as far as the years have passed, and as far as Asian parenting is, what remains at crux here is a mother's love, a mother's (blind) faith, a child's betrayal, and its debilitating consequences thereafter.
We all have different stories; and some of us have more than others. There're the very emotional ones, there're the standard ones, there're the silver spoon ones, and there're the rags to riches ones. Some stories are extraordinary. Some stories are ordinary.
But whether they be ordinary or not, each one is still a story nonetheless, and each one is unparalleled on its own.
Miss Brown's story is an ordinary one. Nothing very spectacular, yet unique on its own.
She was born upcountry during a time when the entire land was just one country and not split into two. Her parents were non-natives of the country. They'd come down from further north- the motherland. Why they came down, we don't know. Neither does Miss Brown. She just knows that she and her elder brother lived upcountry for a while until her father fell ill and the whole family went back up.
By the time the family came down again, there was one member missing. Her father. He had passed on back in the motherland.
How Miss Brown felt about the passing of her father, we don't know. To her, it is as if he was never there. She was much too young, she claims. What she does recall of the time up north is of the rural farm on the east coast of the Peninsula where they lived. She remembers running around the place, and going with the other children out to the fields to catch frogs.
We don't know how long she stayed in the rural farming community, but we do know that somewhere along the way, when she was old enough to attend school, she was sent down to live with a relative and register for school. We know that the shop house the relative owned was near the school- really, just a few steps away- so we presume that she spent her days between school and home.
How her days were during her stay there, we don't know; how long she stayed there, we don't know too. But we know that after a couple of years her mother came down from upcountry to join her children and they (likely) shifted somewhere else.
Miss Brown changed schools for a bit, here and there going all the way until she completed the Chinese equivalent of the A Levels. She then went on to pick up skills in dressmaking, hairdressing and make-up. Those days probably held the most fond of memories for Miss Brown.
She moved on to have her own hair salon thereafter at a shop house on the east side of the country. It was also around this time, during one of the most conflictual times of the country's development, that she met a former classmate who would later become her husband.
They married in the early sixties.
There is a studio photograph of them in their wedding outfits.
At first they stayed with his parents and family. Getting used to a new household, even with the matriarch in control, was no easy an adjustment. Moreover, her husband's job in the forces often took him away from home, and so Miss Brown found herself as a newly-wed needing to cope alone with a new environment, a new home, a new family, everything. The family ran a laundrette, so in between learning to prepare new dishes in the kitchen, she also helped out there a bit.
It was okay.
Except for one thing.
There was no child.
Being barren in a Chinese household during the late sixties in this culture meant being subjected to a constant barrage of snide remarks from the other ladies in the household. It also meant having to bear the unkind words, sarcasm and condemnation from the elders who deemed barrenness as a sin and utter failure of the woman.
And she had no support from her husband whatsoever.
She had to bear it all alone.
Whether there was any support from his end, or whether he blamed her, we don't know. But things did affect her quite badly, so much so that the married couple moved out from the family home into government-assigned accommodations to stay on their own.
Things were better, but Miss Brown was still lonely.
What happened, how she coped with it and all that, we don't really know- Miss Brown is naturally reticent about it- but in 1967, on the suggestion of her own parent, she adopted a child.
A little girl all of 6 months old.
A little girl whom Miss Brown says, grasped her finger tightly and refused to let go.
A little girl who was given a new name by the members of her adopted family, who grew up fed and clothed by her adopted parents.
A little girl who grew up playing with friends and cousins, who later went to kindergarten and afterwards to primary and secondary school, and as best as Asian families can be, was accepted into the family of her mother's, and that of her father's.
For twelve years, it was just the three of them- Miss Brown, her husband, and her little girl. They were typically happy. Day to day life resumed. The family shifted out from the assigned accommodation to another apartment close by. We don't hear much of the day to day life during those years. But we have pictures, and they show occasional family holidays upcountry, excursions to the parks, and picnics by the beaches.
This was a time of major transition, massive organization, and a tremendous amount of structuring across all sectors. Along with it came medical advancement, and right on with medical advancement came a new hope for barren women.
Miss Brown maintains that for all of nine months, as the family shifted back temporarily to her husband's family home, and through all the appointments at the doctor's, she never tod her daughter about her pregnancy.
And so the little girl, how a child of twelve, found out one day that her position of only child had been usurped by her new baby brother to that of elder sister.
Miss Brown's story- the one that I've been permitted to tell- begins here.
Because as far as health and all goes, as far as the years have passed, and as far as Asian parenting is, what remains at crux here is a mother's love, a mother's (blind) faith, a child's betrayal, and its debilitating consequences thereafter.