mum's siblings

while mum chatted with me often about her past and her siblings, today is still the first time i took the effort to pen down the details of what we spoke. it was very interesting how we had always known my mum to be the 4th out of the 5 girls my grandma gave birth to. but it never occurred to me to ask her what her position was amongst all her siblings (including my uncles). until today. here is the list in descending order of my mum and her siblings:

• first uncle (deceased). b. 1927. would be 83 years old this year if he is still alive. think he has 13 children. not too sure. too many to remember. interesting all his children has english names that starts with the letter `j'. my eldest sis is his daughter and given to my mum at birth. to my mum, he is akin to her father in my granddads' absence. it was a tradition for us to visit him first in the line of uncles on every chinese new year.

• 1st aunt. b. 1928. not sure if she is still alive. if she is, she would be 82 years old this year. my mum said the family lost contact with her many decades ago after she left for jakarta. she was last known to be still there and have up to 20 children.

• 2nd uncle (81 years old). b. 1929. has 5 children. all his children's name starts with the letter `d' - duncan, diana, dorothy, doreen and one more… (?)

• 2nd aunt (deceased). b. 1930. would be 80 years old this year if she's still alive. has 5 children. we lived with her family in her toa payoh flats for a couple of months when i was in pri 1/ pri 2.

• 3rd aunt (deceased). b. 1931. would be 79 years old this year if she's still alive. she died of complications from diabetes close to a decade ago. she's the closest to my mum and us. it was a sad last few years for her as she lost both legs due to gangrene (complications from diabetes) and her children all fought over who should shoulder the responsibility to look after her. she spent her last 2 years in the nursing home, not able to eat and had to be fed milk via a tube through her nose. i remembered visiting her when she was at the nursing home. her face brightened up whenever i visited her. before she died, she asked for me. i told things would be ok for her family and that she should go peacefully. her heartbeat stopped immediately after i told her this. she was pronounced dead by the nurse shortly. i was so sad then.

• my mum (78 years old). b. 1932. i realized she is the sixth child in the family only today!

• 3rd uncle (deceased). b. 1933/34 (?). would be 76/77 years old this year if he is still alive. used to visit his place at tanjong rhu estate when i was a kid. he died about 4-5 years ago. hmm... or perhaps more.

• 4rd uncle (75 years old). b. 1935 (?). still alive as far as i know. he is one of the furthest from us in terms of relationship. his wife is known to be one of the greatest miser i know. her ang pows (red packets given during chinese new years) to us were 2 x kwa chee (melon) seeds! :-)

• xth uncle. lives in taiping, perak. not too sure how old he is and where to place him. he is probably elder than the 5th uncle. he was actually the son of my granduncle (my ah gong's brother). not sure about my grandaunt but all i know is that his dad (my granduncle) was killed by the japanese during the japanese occupation days and my granddad brought him up. but given the fact that he lives in malaysia, most of my mum's siblings do not maintain contact with him. nonetheless, my mum still talks fondly about him. he used to visit us when we were young. the last time i saw him was when my mum brought us to visit him in ipoh during my teenage years. he was very nice and drove us from taiping (perak) all the way to johore bahru.

• 5th uncle (deceased). b. 1937 (?). would have been 73 years old this year if still alive. not much i can recall of him except how we would also visit him during chinese new years.

• yth uncle (deceased). b. 1936. never get to see him as he committed suicide at the age of 29 years old before i was born. he would be 74. years old this year if he's still alive. i did suspect he was gay from the way my mum described him - him being very handsome, loves to party, etc. but according to my mum, when he was asked to get married, he said wanted to marry a muslim girl. my grandparents objected and that was it. marriage was never brought up again. he never got married. i understood he committed suicide because of debts incurred from gambling.

• 5th aunt (68 years old). b. 1942 (?). lives in penang. out of her 3 children, 2 are singapore permanent residents.