Mum, I miss you....Lee Chen Hoe

1. Mum, I miss you…….
Lee Chen Hoe
1
The reunion dinner of year 2020 at my hometown in Batu Arang was not the same as
before as the host of the house, my mother had passed on. The joyous spirit of Chinese
New Year had lost much of its enchantment.
Mum spent sixty two springs with me. She was closely concerned with the ups and
downs in my life. She was jubilant upon her elevation to grandmother-hood, when I
settled down and bestowed her with a pair of loving twin girls; she was in despair
when I was diagnosed at the age of 33 years with end stage renal failure. On the other
hand, she felt there was sincerity and warmth among her friends who extended their
concern towards the welfare of my health. She was the most fortunate mother on earth
upon my success in an organ transplant of a deceased’s kidney organ, the Gift of Life,
at Hospital Kuala Lumpur, on 27 July 1996.
My siblings and I did our best to fulfill our filial roles to be with her. We rendered our
moral support and love during the eleven years she was diagnosed with maxilla
carcinoma. Most of the time, we felt a sense of guilt as we felt we could have done
better.
Mum loved to travel. She had been to New Zealand, Haadyai, Hong Kong, Singapore,
Beijing, and Shanghai. She also visited her relatives from my maternal grandmother
side in Shenzhen with her sisters, nephews and nieces.
On the night mum passed away at about 8:20 p.m., the Filipino maid called my 3rd
brother to break the news. It was already late at night when my brothers and 1 rushed
back. On the first day of the vigil, the body make-up artist and embalmer reached my
house in the early hours of the morning and spent an hour and a half to accomplish
their task. On the saddest night of my life, I could not get myself to sleep until it was
dawn. My mum’s shadow and life in the past kept flashing in my mind……
I barely slept for two hours and woke up early. Each one of us had to perform our last
filial duty owing to mum. My 3rd
and 4th
brothers drove to Kuala Lumpur to make
arrangement for the Buddhist chanting scriptures ceremony, even though my mother
had bought a life planning package. My 2nd
brother and I, accompanied by a
committee member of the local cemetery went to arrange the burial ground for the
burial rites.
Later, my brother-in-law drove me to a local bank to settle my mum’s joint account
closure procedures.
Mum said she was not good in her studies. She merely attended one year of
elementary schooling before dropping out to work. Nevertheless, she knew the

2. Mum, I miss you…….
Lee Chen Hoe
2
importance of education. Upon reaching schooling age, my mother registered all of
her children for six years of mother tongue education.
Wood was used to fire our cooking. My mother and I, held the handle on each end of a
crosscut saw, pulling towards each other in a simple harmonic motion, to cut
perpendicularly across the wood grain, until we had completely sawn the lorry load of
the firewood we purchased.
Each time I look at the scars of indexes on my left, the toe cut by the axe to chop fire
wood and the finger while chopping green leafy plants into smaller pieces to feed the
chicken and ducks, it invariably brought back the indelible memories of my growing
up years.
Mum used to rear 5 to 6 ducks which laid their eggs every morning. After we have
collected enough number of eggs, she placed the eggs into a container of highly
concentrated saline solution to marinate them into salted eggs.
Siow Kuen, my mother was the second child among 8 siblings. She and my paternal
grandmother lived for more than 30 years together in harmony. She used to visit the
temple to pray for family harmony and wellbeing. She also left her footprint as a
volunteer when the temple organized yearly functions.
I was a sickly child. Mum carried me in a sarong and took the stage bus, which took us
to the Chong Dispensary in Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur. After been treated by Dr.
Chong, she walked to the then Ampang Bus Terminal, the current site of CIMB Bank,
to take the same bus home. On seeing my condition did not improve after consuming
the medication, she chartered a taxi which took us back to the same clinic we went in
the morning.
As the Chinese saying goes: Raise a child for a hundred years and worry for ninety-
nine. Therefore, in the eyes of mother, her children do not grow up! Though I have
turned 60, each time I travelled abroad on an out-of-town assignment, she on the other
end of the phone, would relentlessly lectured me to be careful on the road, to take care
of my wallet or passport, and pay attention to my diet.
Mum was a strict disciplinarian. I remember an occasion where I quietly went fishing
with my friends. When I got back home with mud all over me, my mother beat me up
with a plastic hose. From then on, I never dared again to go near the fishing pond.
In the early 60s, my parents used to cycle daily to work in the construction site at
Batang Berjuntai. We were therefore left in the care of my paternal grandmother. We

3. Mum, I miss you…….
Lee Chen Hoe
3
were fortunate to grow up showered with my paternal grandparents’ and maternal
grandmother’s love and affection.
After the birth of my sister, the youngest in the family, my mother quit construction
work and opted for rubber tapping. My brothers and I took turn to assist her in rubber
tapping during school holidays. We collected the scrap rubber and placed them inside
the pail that we carried with us. Our work did help my mother in her tapping. That
enabled the latex to have a longer period to drip and collect in the cup hung below,
enhancing the day’s latex collection and yield.
After lunch at about 1.00 o’clock noon, we emptied the latex which filled to the brim
in the cup into a pail. My mother used a rattan pole to carry the latex on her shoulder
to a small hut. The conductor there measured the dried weight or its yield, which
determined the wages of that day’s labour.
I am the eldest in the family of five. I washed my school shoes and also my younger
brothers’ and sister’s. I used the remaining detergent to flush the bathroom and toilet.
On Sunday, I wiped the 20 units of window panes of the house, and mopped the living
room and 4 bedrooms to ease my mum’s housework.
I washed the dishes after dinner before settling down to revise my studies. Mum also
taught me to iron my school uniform. Until now, I iron my own clothes.
Upon passing my Malaysian Certificate of Education in 1977, I was posted to study
sixth form in St. John’s Institution, Kuala Lumpur. As the school did not have
accommodation for outstation students, I had to commute daily in order to attend
school.

4. Mum, I miss you…….
Lee Chen Hoe
4
My classmate, now Ir. Siva Kumar Kandiah understood my plight, where I spent 4 to
5 hours daily on the road to attend school. Without hesitation, he invited me to put up
in his house in Bangsar Park. His wonderful mother treated me like as son and
prepared my breakfast daily. It was during the three months of stay in Siva’s house
that I got to get down to revise my books to prepare for my Higher Certificate of
Education. I passed but my grade was not good enough to get into the five local
universities.
I got a job while waiting of my results at a local blasting accessories manufacturing
company. Upon receipt of my first salary payment of RM103.85, I immediately
purchased a Panasonic Rice Cooker for my mother. By that time, mum had already
retired from rubber tapping and became a full-time housewife.
My mother used the rice cooker I bought for her to cook. The compassionate lunch
with mum lasted for twenty years until I quit the job and had her blessings to venture
to Kuala Lumpur. Commencing from the first day of work until a week before my
mother’s demise, I allocated a small sum of my salary every month to be handed into
her palms.
In 1996, I took a company loan of RM 13,500 and enrolled for and subsequently
graduated with a Master of Business Administration degree from the Malaysian
Graduate School of Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia in 1999.
In the year 2000, I quit without having a second thought from my twenty two prime
years with the same company I first joined in 1978. The management decided to waive
the study loan.
One day in 2008, my mother told me she saw from the mirror, thick white patches in
her upper maxilla. I immediately drove her to a dental clinic in Rawang. Dr. Thomas
after examining her, told me he was unsure, and prepared a referral letter to Mouth and
Oral Department, Hospital Kuala Lumpur.
My 3rd
brother brought her and the referral letter to the hospital. The doctor discovered
it was serious and arranged for mum to be operated on by Dato Dr. Wan Mahadzi,
Head of Department and Dr. Nur Ikram Hanim, within one week, to slice off the white
patches. A biopsy followed. The medical report confirmed it was leukoplakia, which
might link to oral cancer.

5. Mum, I miss you…….
Lee Chen Hoe
5
Dr Tahirah Aljunid took good care of mum and arranged for regular follow up to
monitor her condition. My brothers and I took turns to fetch mum to and from our
hometown to follow up in HKL. Later, we engaged my classmate’s husband to take
over from us. Most of the time, I was at HKL to accompany my mum as I was self-
employed.
The 8 years of interactions with Dr. Tahirah Aljunid, before her transfer to head the
Department, in Hospital Shah Alam, had enlightened me with regards to mum’s illness
and relevant medical jargons. My family and I are grateful to the doctors and medical
staff for their meticulous care.
Mum underwent 33 episodes of radiotherapy in 2014. Nevertheless, her condition
began to deteriorate in 2017. By which time, the cancer cells had spread and punctured
through her right cheek, causing a 25 mm crack.
My mum’s follow up increased as her illness progressed. We sometimes went back to
HKL twice or thrice weekly at the Mouth and Oral Surgery, then Oncology for X-ray
and ENT Clinics.
The radiotherapy affected the soft tissues of her nasal passage resulting in blocked
nose. The appointment at ENT was normally scheduled for 3 months before the next
appointment. My 4th
brother took her to visit an ENT doctor to suck out the dried but
thick nasal mucus, to clear her nasal passage and breathing.
I made several requests for mum to put up in my house in KL but to no avail. We had
no choice but to bring our families to visit her. I cancelled all of my out-of-town
assignments in order to spend more time with her.
About two months prior to my mother’s demise, my heart was in my mouth as I held
her skeletal arm. Mum’s illness had turned her from a physique of 55 kg into a 35 kg
skeleton! She remained positive that she would one day recover.
She walked slowly with the aid of a walking stick or sat on a wheelchair. She had no
appetite. The food that she ate flowed out through her cracked cheek on the right.
Constipation happened and she passed motion only once a week. Most of the time, she
laid on her bed. She began to withdraw to herself and remain silent. We hired a
Filipino maid to assist father to take care of her.
Mum’s pain was all the more understandable as her self-esteem had fallen into a
valley! I could do nothing but only watch helplessly of her gradual physical
deterioration. How I wish I could share her suffering.

6. Mum, I miss you…….
Lee Chen Hoe
6
One day, while waiting for her turn in the follow-up visit, my mother confided to me
that she had discarded her worries as her children were able to fend for themselves.
She instructed me to conduct her funeral rites according to her wishes.
On 2nd
March, my mother’s legs swelled up. My youngest brother sent her to Hospital
Kuala Lumpur in an ambulance. The doctor told us that from my mother’s X-ray, and
blood test, it indicated her internal organs were alright at her age of 85 save her liver.
The liver appeared swollen, most likely caused by lack of nutrients as she only ate
light porridge cooked with fish.
After collecting the prescription, it was already 6 o'clock in the evening. While on the
way back from hospital, mum was exhausted from being in the hospital since morning.
That night, I stayed put in my parents’ house. Mum’s left foot dripped a little
odourless pus. The skin of her hands began to peel off, a sign of nearing death of
terminal cancer. We said goodbye to her before leaving home that afternoon. Mother
raised her right hand in response. Unknowingly, that was the last time she bid us
farewell.
At 8:10 pm on 7th
March, the first day of the second month of lunar calendar, the
Filipino maid cleaned up my mother after dinner. She settled down on the sofa while
my father went to prepare her dosage of morphine painkiller. Ten minutes later upon
my father returning to her with the medication, he found her head slumped motionless
on the pillow next to her.
I stood in front of my mother’s body and we assured her she was in the land of eternal
happiness. We promised to take good care of my aged father in his twilight years. I
hope she would continue to guard us and care about the safety of our family from
ABOVE.
As much as I was reluctant to let my mother go, it was impossible as it was the rules
of life. For mum, that was the best way to relieve her from the illness. If ever there
was a next life, I hope to resume our maternal and children relationship again!
Nowadays, my brother and I bring over my father back to visit our house during the
weekends. As I walk into my mother’s bedroom, I see the bed she used to sleep on, the
chair she sat, the portrait of her placed on top of the makeup desk she used, her clothes
that are neatly hung in the closet. Seeing the scene, I remembered the poem wǔ líng
chūn by lǐ qīng zhào, " wù shì rén fēi shì shì xiū, yù yǔ lèi xiān liú” meaning the
scenery remains the same, but persons have changed, and everything is over. When
I wanted to convey my extreme feelings of sadness, my tears shed first even before I
could even speak!

7. Mum, I miss you…….
Lee Chen Hoe
7
(This article was translated from the Chinese script written on 22nd
May 2020)
22nd
May 2021