Happy Mothers Day - Page 6

Out of interest, do you have any cats as pets?😆

Xoxo

A Mother's Love

May 09, 2010 Sunday, 11:27 AM

Desmond Lim comes to terms with expressing his love for his mother.

I AM a born-and-bred Singaporean.

And like many who've spent most of their lives in Singapore, I am shy about showing too much of my emotions.

We are shy about expressing our love for our loved ones; we are afraid of what people will think of us if we show the slightest hint of emotion; we shun crying in public. Hugging our parents is definitely a big no-no.

I question our hesitation at public display of emotions and love sometimes. There was a point in my life, when I even thought that Asians do not show love openly because we all have a lesser capacity to love.

But as I grew older, I changed my mind.

I came to realise that Asians do love. But our love is shown more in deeds, than in words.

My mother is a great example of that. She cooks, she washes, she cleans, she makes sure I take my medicine when I am sick. She does everything a mother is supposed to do.

But here comes the revelation: She has never said the sacred "I love you" to me (at least not that I can remember).

Well, to be fair, I don't ever remember saying that to her too.

But yet I have never doubted her love for me. I've come to realise that she shows me her love through her actions - nagging included.

For the last five months, I have been documenting the daily life of a mother and her son, who suffers from muscular dystrophy, a condition that causes the muscles in his body to deteriorate over time. People suffering from the condition usually do not live past their 20s.

The mother, Madam Tay Et, 52, spends most of her waking hours every single day attending to the needs of her 21-year-old son, Kevin Lee. She feeds, bathes, carries and helps him when he needs the toilet.

Kevin, now bedridden, has been suffering from the disease since he was 10. Then, Madam Tay quit her job as a factory worker to take care of him, leaving the family to make do with a single income monthly.

As I was photographing the mother and son, I was deeply humbled by what I saw. I witnessed the depth of a mother's love. There were no mushy verbal exchanges of "I love you". Madam Tay's actions spoke instead.

Everything she does is motivated by her love for her son. I am now convinced, through Madam Tay's example, that Asians do have the capacity to love, though we may not be very good expressing it.

So today, as the world celebrates Mother's Day, let me put away my shyness and do this for the first time in 28 years of my life: "Mum, I love you."

View the audio slideshow about Madam Tay Et and her son.

Tags: asians, love, mother's day, muscular dystrophy