the preceding post covered my mum's early marriage years. this part will focus on my mum's life from the time my second sis was borned to the time my brother was borned
- my second sis was borned in aug 1961. by then, my parents had moved out of kampong paya lebar and have moved to upper paya lebar road (near tai seng village). it was a birth that took my mum by surprise. she arrived early. being inexperienced with childbirth and given that the due date was still some time away, she did not expect my sis's arrival. all she knew was that she felt an ache at the tummy and had wanted to go to the toilet. things happened very fast then and before she knew it, the water bag burst and my second sis arrived. (a second version of this story, which was also related to me by my mum, when she's demented, was that my second sis was born in the taxi as she rushed to the hospital after her water bag burst, whichever story is the correct one, there is one consistency - that my sis was born out of the hospital in a place that is unexpected).
- the arrival of my second sis meant that there are two baby girls in the family now. this did not go well with my grandma. and given the strong desire to have a grandson, somehow, all the hatred were directed onto my mum, and i suspect, indirectly, my second sis.
- my grandma increased her pressure on my dad to leave my mum. this created tremendous stress on my mum. some of the things that my grandma resorted to include, amongst others, black magic, burning and drinking of talismans, drugging my dad, and so on. at one stage, my dad left my mum and went back to live with my grandma.
- between 1961 and 1965, my mum got pregnant two more times. both times, my grandma drugged her and cast spells (don't ask me how) on her. and both times, she miscarried. the two babies she lost were boys. this didn't matter to my grandma for she had reach a point where she just wanted my dad to divorce her. amidst all these, my grandpa sided with my mum. he felt that my grandma had not been fair to my mum.
by this time, the emotional stress and strains had taken its toll on my mum. she went into depression and had to be placed on anti-depressant medication for life. my mum attempted suicide a few times but did not succeed. during one of the occasions, she woke up and found herself in the hospital. and in her bad state, she saw the vision of sakyamuni buddha in front of her. a monk paid her a visit, said some prayers and gave her some holy water. my mum claimed that she felt a sense of relieve and that all tensions in her was cleared. when she left the hospital, the first thing she did was to make her way to the temple. it was located at upper thomson road. the monk that prayed for her was the resident monk of this temple. the buddha that she saw had the same likeness as the buddha in this temple (see picture). it was then that she got herself baptised into buddhism. the resident monk that baptised her was none other that master hong choon, and the temple is kong meng san phor kak see (also known as bright hill temple). my mum was given the buddhist name "bu hao".
- things became a little better after this spat of events. my dad returned. in dec 1966, i was borned. i would not have been borned had my two elder brothers survived. my birth also marked the arrival of a first boy in the family. things got a bit better. 3 years later in may 1969, my brother was borned. not long after that my granddad passed away.
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