Mother Daughter Relationship

THE house is quiet except for the music on iTunes playing from Nek Yong’s computer. It’s a Saturday and the girls have gone to visit their Nenek (grandmother) living outside of Kuala Lumpur.

Despite the beautiful day, Nek Yong is feeling a wee bit sad today. Over a late breakfast I found out my younger daughter had kept her break-up with her boyfriend a secret from me for a whole month. Imagine, a whole month! And I thought we were THICK! Like serious thick! Like hardened-butter-placed-in-an-overly-cold-section-of-the-fridge THICK!

When I found out the truth, my jaw actually dropped. I stared at her unbelievingly. She in turn had the nerve to laugh and said to her sister as she pointed at me: “Look at mum’s face!”

Luckily her sister didn’t find it funny or someone would have received a few thwacks on the head by the time I recovered.

Do we have a hole in our love?

 Image: Love Food - CYBERSNOT

 http://www.sxc.hu/

The truth is, Nek Yong would still not know about the break-up if my eldest daughter had not “forced” everyone to listen to her dream.

My eldest daughter has what we called “odd moments of verbal diarrhoea”. And when she has one of these sessions, she couldn’t care less if the sky is falling. She’d continue her story as everyone keeps rolling their eyes to heaven, a hint that doesn’t seem to have any effect on my eldest girl.

This was how it started. My elder daughter said: “You know I had this weird dream. I was talking to your boyfriend and asking him why did you guys break up?” At the end of that sentence my eldest daughter turned to look at her sister who, just as suddenly said: “Memang pun (yeah, we did).” And that was the exact time my jaw dropped. And my eldest daughter’s jaw dropped as well.

We were in disbelief.

When I finally found my voice I said: “And it’s been sometime?” It was an accusation rather than an assumption.

My younger daughter acknowledged it. She said: “January,” before adding, “after New Year’s Day actually.”

All hell broke loose. My eldest daughter went on a how-can-you-not-tell-us-and-I’m-hurt mode while I went on a how-can-you-not-tell-us-'cos-we-tell-each-other-everything mode.

Did it surprise Nek Yong so badly? Yes, it did because the same thing happened when my younger daughter broke up with her first boyfriend. And, we only found out because I had this nagging suspicion and confronted her so she had to spill the beans.

You might be saying if she has done it before then it shouldn’t come as a surprise. But yes we were surprised because we had made sure when it happened the first time that she WILL NOT go through the pain alone should it happen again. And it happened again and she didn’t tell us and we are now questioning are we as thick as we thought we are really?

So okay, every one is entitle to how they want to handle their lives. Every one should have the choice to share or not to share their life but something inside of me is wondering. Does she trust me enough to share her happy as well as sad moments with? Is she only allowing me to see only her surface and nothing more? Are there more turmoil within her that I do not know or aware of or will ever get to know.

Now, as I sit alone writing this I remember what I last said to her one night as we were talking about guys and relationships. I said “if ever your guy hurt you I will break every bone in his body”. She had smiled at me. And I had said, “You’d better believe me.”

So as the three of us pondered over the why-s and what-s of the break up, I’m still assuming she had told me the truth when she said that the break up was mutual although she initiated it.

Since everyone looked so upset, she left the dining table. Her sister went over to her room to hug her. I went into the guest toilet and looked for excuses to scream bloody murder about.
Was I over-reacting? Yes, probably. But no one will know inside of me how much my girls mean to me. If they hurt, I hurt, even more badly. That is the truth of a single parent’s life.

With loving care - Nek Yong